When it comes to acting pedigree, it cannot get better than Akshara Haasan and Vivaan Shah - she is Kamal Haasan's daughter and he, Naseeruddin Shah's son. The two, who play the lead pair in the upcoming film, Laali Ki Shaadi Mein Laaddoo Deewana, have known each other since childhood and even dated each other briefly. No wonder then, that their comfort level has translated into crackling chemistry on screen. In a heartwarming conversation with BT, they open up about their lineage, tinsel town experiences and more, all over two cuppa of chai. Read on...

Akshara and Vivaan, you guys debuted with films helmed by R. Balki (Shamitabh) and Vishal Bhardwaj (7 Khoon Maaf), respectively. How has the journey been so far?
Akshara: I wanted to become a football player, but I injured my legs and was heartbroken that I couldn't pursue it seriously. However, I bounced back and worked as an assistant director for four years. I also assisted dad recently in his upcoming film. So, the journey has been incredible. I've kept my mind open and I'm thankful for the kind of appreciation and knowledge I've received. Now, I'm craving for more.
Vivaan: We both are fortunate to have worked with the kind of people we have. These guys are institutions in their own right. Now, it's our responsibility to make them proud. We've had a great launch pad, and the true test begins now.
Akshara: Even now, I text (R) Balki sir and ask him what he thinks of my work. I am sure Vivaan does the same with Vishal (Bhardwaj) sir.

Laali Ki Shaadi..., directed by Manish Hairshankar, is a quirky family entertainer. How was the atmosphere on the set?
Vivaan: It was crazy, just like the film. She is the most fun to work with. She keeps playing pranks on people.
Akshara: (In a serious tone) You are soon going to land me in a lot of trouble.
Vivaan: (Laughs) But you are a lot of fun to work with. For a debutante, her performance in Shamitabh was quite sophisticated. She is very expressive and communicates a lot with the smallest of gesture. While working on this film, we got to learn a lot from lot from Saurabhji (Shukla) and Sanjayji (Misra). We've become their disciples. Sanjay sir's sense of humour would leave us in splits.
Akshara: They would discuss how to make the scenes better and we both would be busy observing them. Everyone on the set was involved in the filmmaking process. We just watched in awe.

You guys must have been the youngest on the set...
Akshara: Yes, but we were treated like adults.
Vivaan: ...though we behaved like babies.
Akshara: We used to sit together and figure out how to perform our scenes better. Thanks to him, my Hindi is much better. Since he has a theatre background, he had a different perspective towards acting as well.
Vivaan: What I like the most about her is that she is always game for rehearsing. Sometimes, people don't want to do it, but she is a team player.

Apart from rehearsals, is there anything else you guys bonded on? Laddoo, for instance?
Akshara: (Laughs) Nope, we are health conscious.
Vivaan: But while shooting in Gujarat, dhoklon ki barsaat hui!

Akshara, you are a good dancer. Did you teach Vivaan a step or two?
Vivaan: I'm also a dancer. I'm a crazy dancer.
Akshara: He enjoys dancing and that's the beauty of it.
Vivaan: I think dance is the purest form of expression. When I auditioned for Happy New Year, Farah ma'am (director Farah Khan) asked me if I could dance. And I lied, saying that I was damn good at it. To my surprise, she held her head and rued, 'But I wanted a bad dancer.' Then I started shouting, 'Oh, that's me'.

The two of you have a lineage to be proud of. In fact, your fathers have worked together in Hey Ram (2000). Did they drop in on the set?
Akshara: Only my mother (Sarika) visited me because my birthday fell on the third day of the shoot. Otherwise, they respect our space.
Vivaan: I think her birthday celebration broke the ice for us.

Do you have any memories from the set?
Akshara: Some of the best memories I have, some of the most precious bonds I've developed - both professionally and personally - have been on this set.
Vivaan: I remember shooting for a song in Kashmir. Like all heroines of the past, Akshara was dancing in a chiffon sari while the temperature was freezing.
Akshara: This is not coming out of any place of disrespect, but I used to make fun of such sequences. I used to laugh when I saw actors dancing around trees. Back then, I never thought I'd be doing it one day.
Vivaan: But she did it with out flinching (laughs).
Akshara: Yes, with Vivaan and Gurmeet Choudhary backing me, it was quite fun.

Akshara Haasan, the 25-year-old younger daughter of actors Kamal Haasan and Sarika, is not your quintessential Bollywood heroine. Sans make-up, sporting an androgynous dressing style and spouting Mumbaiyya Hinglish with a Tamil twang, the football player-turned-actor is unlike her contemporaries. She keeps the conversation real with her refreshing candour. In a free-wheeling chat with BT, the light-eyed beauty, who is a spitting image of her gorgeous mother, opens up about her iconic filmi lineage, her take on marriage post her parents' separation, her relationship with 'best friend' Tanuj Virwani and working with ex-boyfriend Vivaan Shah in the forthcoming film, Laali Ki Shaadi Mein Laaddoo Deewana. Excerpts...

You don't behave or dress like a conventional B-Town heroine...
I have played football for 20 years. I am also a trained dancer and it was dancing that made me realise that I can act. Even today, I forget that I am a heroine. I still do the things I used to do when I was an assistant director. I don't think you should change unless your behaviour affects someone negatively.

Were you always a tomboy?
I went to a boarding school where, among the 15 kids in my class, only three were girls. They were nice, but there was not much to talk about with them. I got along more with the guys. I hung out with them and I owe my love for cars majorly to them. In fact, I think like a dude sometimes. Dude's brain, girl's body! (laughs). My friends often address me, saying, 'Hey bro or Ae boy, come here'. I have to then remind them that I am a girl. This is the second time in my entire life that I have grown my hair and I did it only for my career.

Does your sister Shruti advise you to look a certain way, as she has that star quality in her?
Shruti has that aura, I am still trying to get there. She forces me to put on make-up (laughs). 'You better do this', she teases me. However, I like to keep it real as make-up suffocates my skin. So, I usually avoid it unless I am required to wear it.

There's this perception that star kids have it easy...
It depends on the context. If they are saying it in a derogatory way, I ask, 'What's your problem? Jalan hai kya?' I feel lucky to get these opportunities, but at the same time, I struggle as much as everyone else. If you choose not to see it, it's your fault. It's easy to throw my parents' names around, but I have to earn my own respect. If you are good at your job, people will take you seriously. They will probably be kinder to me because of my parents, but I want them to remember me as Akshara, the girl who worked really hard, made it on her own and didn't use her family name to achieve anything.

Who have you taken after?
Dad. I complete his sentences and know exactly what's going on in his head. The decisions I take in life remind me that I am a lot like him, especially when it comes to certain aspects like clear-headedness, conviction, fearlessness, hard work, discipline and taking no bullshit. In fact, both (mom and dad) are earnest, honest and gutsy people, who push boundaries without changing who they are. If they have an opinion, they will voice it.

You worked as an assistant director (AD) on your father's film, recently. Would you like him to watch you act on the set?
I am intimidated by my father. I respect him as an actor. If he comes on the set, I will keep trying to impress him. So, I'd suggest that he doesn't come, but having said that, it would also be nice to have him over. It's a fear I'd like to conquer. Working as an AD on his film was great. On the set, we are professionals, not father-daughter. We keep the personal equation out.

In times of trouble, who do you approach first?
In fact, I am the agony aunt in my family. I listen calmly and am very observant, so they like to vent when I am around.

Laali Ki Shaadi... revolves around marriage. Your parents separated when you were 10. Did that change your notion about marriage?
When my parents split (the couple is separated, not divorced), it hurt me a lot. You want your parents to be together, but I sat down and thought, if two people are not happy together, they probably shouldn't be together as that makes it worse. But it didn't change my perception of marriage.

Do you see yourself getting married?
Maybe, maybe not. It has become a façade now. People say, 'Meri shaadi ho gayi'. Six months later, they say, 'Divorce ho gaya!' Phir shaadi kyun ki? If you want to get married, do so whenever you think is the right time and do it for the right reason. Some may not want to get married and stay with the same person. Do whatever works for you.

Are you dating Tanuj Virwani?
We are best friends. We have a lot of common friends. Our group goes, 'So you guys are dating, huh?' I wonder where this news came from.

Your co-star in Laali..., Vivaan Shah, is your ex-boyfriend. So, how was it working with him?
We realised that our friendship was of much more value than our relationship, as we have known each other since childhood. We used to run around on the set of Hey Ram. It was easy to work with each other, as we have moved on and it's a friendship I will always cherish.

Speaking of Hey Ram, you are quite fond of Shah Rukh Khan...
I love him! I have grown up on his films. I was probably six years old when I met SRK on the set of Hey Ram. Since then, I have been in awe of him. He has that aura. You get so fascinated by him.

Akshara Haasan, 24, is mad and chilled out, but cannot be pushed around. She knows exactly what she wants and while she will take advice from her parents and sister, she will finally do things her own way. She is sensitive, intuitive and quirky with her own crazy style of dressing. Ahead of her debut drama film Shamitabh, she talks to Bombay Times about her strong mother Sarika, her protective sister Shruti Haasan and what makes her an atheist like her father. Excerpts:

Was being a movie star the obvious career choice for you?
I was born in Chennai and brought up in Chennai. My parents separated when I was about 10. Shruti akka and I moved with my mom to Mumbai in 2002. I went to school here for two years and then moved to a boarding school in Bengaluru. I dropped off from studies post Class XI. I felt that if you can't give 100% to studies, why do it? I would rather fail after giving my 100% in something as against failing after giving my 50% to it. Since my childhood, I have been in love with dance. And I started learning dance from when I was eight, be it salsa, hip-hop or pop. So, post dropping out of school, I decided to take a year off in Chennai to learn dance - Bharatnatyam and Kuchipudi, during which time, I stayed with my dad and then returned to Mumbai in 2009. My mom had done a film with Rahul Dholakia sir and was friends with him, so, I started off by being his AD for a film titled Society. As a kid, I would go to his set and do my homework and projects sitting in the van. I wanted to train in dance at the Lasalle Singapore and returned to Chennai to apply with the help of my dance teacher. It was tough to get in and involved selection after auditioning. But as luck would have it, just a few days before I had to make my audition tape, I was dancing when my leg crashed into a pillar and I tore my tissue, my muscle and my nerves, and badly injured my ankle. I was completely heart-broken and shattered. It was a very nasty accident as a result I could not dance for the next one year and went into a sort of depression as I was unable to do something I was so passionate about. After a few months of resting in Chennai, I returned to Mumbai. After recovering, I did a few commercials and a dance-based theatre and realised how I also loved acting. Now I had fallen in love with not just one but two art forms, dance and acting. I was doing a commercial one day and was waiting to catch a rickshaw outside Pixion studio and R Balki sir saw me. We then met much later and he narrated Shamitabh to me. I am a huge fan of Balki sir and obviously would not have left the opportunity to work with him. I can proudly say today that I have two mentors in the film industry - Balki sir and Rahul sir.

Who do you love the most in the world?
Myself and after me, my mom. My mom is the princess and the queen of my life. I connect with both my parents and equally at different levels, but there is a thing that I have with my mom and where there is a bigger connect with her. We have a similar mindset where she is easy-going but you can't push her around. She is a strong woman and I get my strength from her. So, today I can say that I am a strong woman. My mom is a sweetheart. She is very warm and loves feeding people. She likes the fact that I am adventurous and sporty, stress-free, have clarity of thought and can be responsible. Of course, she does not like my slight bit of laziness. My dance teacher Kokila is also like my second mom and if I am talking to her, no matter how much I may cover up, she will know if I am upset.

Talk about your dad?
He is awesome fun. I am a mix of both my parents and get my naughtiness from the both of them. Even at this age, he works out the same like he did 20 years ago. He is so much into fitness. I love that. He is very hardworking and knows what he wants, is very practical and very simple. He simplifies everything. No one can mess with him as he believes that when I am not pushing you over, you don't push me over. I have grown up seeing him do his own stunts. Like my father, I too am an atheist. Being an atheist for me means not to do idol worship. I have been to temples, but do not feel connected. Sometimes I do visit the Mount Mary Church and just sit there for hours looking at different people and just lighting a candle. I am not praying like a religious person would do, but there is something in that place. Also somewhere, I feel talking to the father in the confession box is in some ways therapeutic.

How naughty are you?
I am a big prankster and have always got my sister into trouble for my naughtiness. Mom would ask me who did this and I would say Shruti akka to get her into trouble. I remember once when I was in boarding school in Bengaluru. I must be just 15 and was very bored and fried one Saturday, so, I decided to be adventurous. I was always hungry and first decided to sneakily take tuck from somewhere. I then walked up to the terrace. I found a hard plastic suitcase. And I decided that it is mine and I started lugging it down. Then I thought why not surf down the stairs. So I put on my horse-riding helmet, put gaddas on both sides of the staircase, asked two friends to push me down and started surfing downwards sitting on the suitcase till I finally went and smashed into the glass at the end of the staircase. I knew I was in trouble and was detained and suspended by my dormitory mam, but finally negotiated with her and managed with just a detention.

How painful was the separation of your parents for you?
It actually gave me strength and helped define who I was, but as a kid I did feel shit ya. People looked at me differently and there was a lot of pity, which I didn't need at all. But I would say to myself, 'Dude shit happens and I can't do anything about it'. I became more sensitive as a person and maybe more stronger. I also became over adjusting towards my mother, which also worried her.

How different are you from your sister Shruti Haasan?
She is a lot more headstrong than I am. Our likes and dislikes are very different. I am more the boyish type, whereas she has a more womanly side to her than I do. We have a true sister bond and she is very protective about me.

Your experience working with Amitabh Bachchan?
To be honest, anyone would be intimidated by Mr. Bachchan. He has that large majestic energy. I would take so much time while he would patiently be waiting there. I didn't want to piss him off. I kept thinking before meeting him, how do I greet him, do I say Hello sir or Namaste sir. What do I say? I love the way he says, 'Namaskar!' My mom took me to the set of Yudh to meet him. He is so chilled out and kept trying to easen me up. He was so kind and I will never forget that. If I got stuck in a scene, he would ask, 'Do you want some help?' I would say no and he would again say, 'Let me show you.' He made me so comfortable that by the end of the schedule we felt a bond and that is only because of him.

What about working with Dhanush?
He is very quiet and keeps to himself but when the camera comes on, he transforms into somebody else. He is not just powerful on screen, he is also powerful in person and you can get carried away just seeing him performing.

You were earlier dating Vivaan Shah. Are you still friends?
Yes, we are still friends. He is a very good and genuine person and works very hard.

Do you ever want to be a director?
That plan is there. I do write on the side. I have stories and concepts in my mind. I get that from my father.

Is Tamil cinema an option for you?
Yes, but not right now. Having started in Bollywood, I need to first get my feet grounded here.