Opinionated and outspoken, Lisa Haydon on the movies she’d like to do and the people she’d like to associate with
Upala KBR (DNA; September 3, 2014)


How alike are Vijayalakshmi and Lisa?
In some ways, maybe. But I am not crazy like her. I mean she has sex during the lunch break because she says she only has five minutes (laughs)! I am not like that! That character was so open to misinterpretation I was like I don’t know if Indians are going to like this girl. We abide by social morals and generally like to behave ourselves. Vijayalakshmi doesn’t care what people think about her and lives life in an honest way and that’s why she gets away with it because she is so clean inside.

Have you kept in touch with Kangana, post-Queen?
When we meet at events, we say hello and chat warmly, but keeping in touch? There is no sense in doing that… Do you keep in touch with every journalist you work with? No... It’s difficult because our lives are so different and we don’t have the time. I have such a big family as it is. I consider it a privilege that I get to connect with so many people closely working on a film. I definitely shared my life with almost every single person on the sets in some form.

Elaborate...
Kangana and I were also playing opposite characters in the film. She had to be depressed during her time in Paris and I had to be bubbly and upbeat. We also didn’t socialise a lot during shooting because if I talked to her, that would have ruined her headspace and I didn’t need to go to Rani’s headspace. So I hung out with the director Vikas Bahl and the ADs (laughs).

You’ve only signed The Shaukeens after Queen...
I haven’t even thought about that. I am trying to be a bit picky. I always feel a bit funny when I say I am being picky because I don’t want to sound pricey at all but I think it’s rare that roles like Queen come along. That was like a really good break. There are some other films that I might sign but I think I will just follow my intuition. At the end of the day, it’s not about being pricey or signing a slew of films but I think I just have to
do my job.

The Shaukeens is a remake. Seen the original?
I haven’t. I had a moment when I met Akshay (Kumar) for the first time and he asked me if I had seen the original. I was very embarrassed because I hadn’t. I was thinking if I could just lie now and go home and quickly see it before I saw him again (laughs)! But I didn’t and I am glad because only the format of the movie is the same, but the storyline and the characterisations are quite different.

Nargis Fakhri and you share much in common - you’ve lived overseas, know each other for a while, are both doing films and are both great dancers...
Thank you. I met her while modelling in Australia. Actually, she was friends with my sister Malika. I was the younger one. I love Nargis. She’s an awesome chick and she has great energy. But I won’t say I lived abroad. I have spent a lot of my life in India and on and off since I was 12, moving back and forth between India and Australia. From 12 to 17, I was here, after which I was in the USA till I turned 19. I was in Australia, 21 onwards. India, however, has had a predominant place in my life.

Nargis was to do The Shaukeens. Did you speak to her before doing it?
Not at all. Why would I call her and ask her if I should be doing it? It’s a personal choice, you know! The last time I saw her when I was with Sid Mallya shooting for Kingfisher’s calendar girls and she came down as a guest appearance. Every time we meet, we laugh a lot. She’s also got a great sense of humour.

Did it bother you that the role went to her before?
Not at all. That’s like having an ego. Why would I have any ego hassles with myself? It came to me and I am thankful for that. Two weeks before Queen released nobody would have offered me The Shaukeens. Nargis couldn’t do it, they offered me the film, I accepted and that was it.

What other films are you looking at?
I am a very sensitive person when it comes to signing films or anything to do with work. When I have to make a big decision, I give it a lot of thought. I usually feel hesitant first and then I go home and feel silly. I have got lots of offers similar to what I played in Queen and I like playing free-spirited characters, but would like to do varied roles. I would like to do an action film in the future, but what’s most important for me in a film is the actions of people and the realness of people. Like exposing humanity for what we actually are. I want to play characters that allow people to be themselves or open people’s minds.

Tell us about your family…
When I tell people we are seven siblings, they ask me if we are children from two marriages as it’s a large family. I am like no, we are all from the same marriage and parents (Venkat and Anna). I have got three brothers and four sisters. One of my brothers, Jono, is based in Sydney and the rest are in Mumbai. We all live together in one big house in Breach Candy. I love it. It’s fantastic! All of us have a lot of friends and they are always in and out and we have dinners every night. My dad is a motivational speaker, life coach and HR consultant. My mom helps my sister Julia with her ballet school and she also runs my organic cosmetics company, Naked. All my products only have three to four ingredients in them, the bare essentials that you need.

Your parents’ reaction to you wanting to become an actress?
They’re very cool. They don’t react to anything I do but will always advise me, if they see me getting hurt or walking in a direction which is wrong for me. It enables me to listen to them while still doing everything that I want to do. It enables me to tell my parents everything that I do. I don’t think our parents have ever walked around us with a cushion under any of our bums. They let us all do whatever we want, yet see whatever happens to us and understand that you cannot evade failure and pain. They are there for us unconditionally.

Any of your sibling harbour Bollywood aspirations?
Not at all. My family is not interested in acting at all. They are very happy for me but no one is interested in this line of work. My older sister Malika is a music producer and DJ, one brother plays cricket professionally and is a chef now after tearing a ligament in his knee, another brother Amit is studying BCom, my two sisters Julia and Ameeta teach ballet and another sister just completed her BA and is the captain of the Maharashtra football team. She’s considering what to do next. She had come with me on the sets of The Shaukeens in Mauritius. She loved it. They had put me in a suite the size of a house. I got the first taste of being a movie star. She flew in and when she saw the suite she named it the ‘Gatsby’ and told me, ‘Lisa I don’t know which balcony to smoke on.' (laughs) My youngest brother is doing a degree in hospitality.

Did you train in dancing?
My parents ran an NGO when I was young and we used to do stage performances and sell concert tickets to raise funds for charity. We raised funds for children who had polio, cancer, HIV, rehab centres for alcoholics etc. That’s how our dancing started. We also raise funds for the Bidada International Foundation during the charity camp held in Kutch every year during January. And then when I was 14, they put me in Shiamak Davar’s dance academy and then I learned ballet at the same time, which is why two of my sisters are ballerinas. We also wanted to do Indian performances, so I have learned a bit of Indian classical dances also like Kathakali and Bharatnatyam.

Define love.
Love is not conditional. Nor does it necessarily have anything to do with possession (at least for me), it’s not conditional on the way that you treat me. There’s nothing that my siblings or family would tell me or do that would change the way that I love them. It’s unconditional love and I want to apply that love to every single person in my life – whether it would be my future husband and whatever he would like to experience or my girlfriend who can tell me if she’s done something wrong. Love to me, today, means being happy for people. It’s not contingent on what you have to give me, but on what I have to give you. Love in itself is such a profound feeling. It’s about accepting the person you love without judging him/her.

Are you single?
I am single, but I am not looking for anything serious at the moment. I am having fun. I think I should just focus on my work now rather than jump out of one relationship and start looking for the next one. Right now, I just want to spend good quality time with good people, doing things that make me feel happy.

Were you dating Ness Wadia?
I think I should clear this once and for all, so my answer is – No. I am not and never was seeing him. Yes I do know him on a social level but I have never dated him. Ever. I don’t know where this rumour began, but it’s not true. I don’t want to talk about people who I have no right to talk about. It’s so ridiculous that I don’t want to even talk about it. That everyone close to me knows the truth, is all that matters. I don’t need to clarify to anybody else.

In touch with your ex, Karan Bhojwani?
We’re in touch a bit. He will always be one of my closest friends, he will always be family. I have no ego with him or about him. We have this, ‘Hey bro, what’s happening’ relationship for the moment. I guess there’s a friendship there only we understand. And it’s really hard to explain how funny it is unless you’re in it. But it’s shanti. Also I can’t keep answering these questions about him in the media. I feel like I’m pissing on his territory and that’s a liberty I don’t want to take. We both made a decision and we have to respect the space. You have to let some ships sail in life. So I think this will be the last time I say anything about this.

Randeep Hooda and you were snapped having dinner at a restaurant a few months ago...
We just walked out together and some pap clicked us. I had never met him before that night. The dating rumour was a lie. Maybe, somebody tipped off the photographer. I was at a work dinner with Atul Kaskebar and somebody else from Bling. Randeep had just signed up and I had just come back from somewhere outside. I said let’s go somewhere for dinner to celebrate the success of Queen. I was meeting Randeep for the first time, it were just the four of us having dinner and the next thing I hear – we are dating! I was like I don’t even have this guy’s phone number, we are not even friends. It was just so random. It affects me when it hurts someone close to me which the Randeep story may have done at that time in my life with what I had just been through. I am more concerned for my family and loved ones. I do enough bad shit (laughs) without people making up more bad shit about me. If I am in a relationship, I will be honest enough to talk about it.

Who are your friends?
A lot of my friends don’t live in India anymore. They are in Australia, New York, Spain and Amsterdam. We always try and catch up as much as possible. I have a home anywhere in the world and I use them (laughs). I have six really good girlfriends in Mumbai, plus my sisters. So that’s nine soul sisters in one city. Recently, I went to Ibiza in Spain with my sister Malika and best friend on a holiday. Some of my closest friends live in Spain. The girl, Digna on whom I based my Queen character Vijayalakshmi, lives in Ibiza. I said thank you to her this time because I didn’t know if I could have played that character as well if I don’t know this girlfriend. Digna does such outrageous things. I went to stay with her one night in Ibiza... she lives in a tree house in a forest and has a full-on adventurous life. I find such a life charming…

What is Rascals to you - an experience, a lesson or something to not look back at?
I never got my hopes up as far as Rascals was concerned. So, there was nothing to be disappointed or excited about. We shot Queen in 2012 and I forgot it was ever going to release. My life was going in a completely different direction. I don’t work like that. I live for this moment right now. I had fun doing Rascals but did I resonate with it? No, I did not, but I think it was a lesson. I learn from every film I do.

What is your dream?
I have been contemplating this a lot. What is freedom today? To live a life of freedom as much as I can. Which means not just in control of my job, or money or I being single but be free from inside. To be free means to be happy and I just want to be that. I want to live out my full potential and follow my heart. I also have this repressed desire to sing and play guitar. I want be a rock star one day. But on a very physical level, I think I am living my dream right now, doing movies, chilling on holidays, meeting amazing people, travelling. I love travelling and I am getting to do all that now so I am thankful.

Priya Gupta (BOMBAY TIMES; March 9, 2014)

Lisa Haydon, 28, is impulsive, emotional and adaptable. She is a concoction of many opposites. While she is crazy at times and wants to have a good time, she is also spiritual. She is an extrovert outside, but values her space at home. While she is a believer in eternal love, she also has a high need to retain her own individuality. Over an hour-long conversation just before the release of her film Queen, she spoke to Bombay Times about her hippy mother, her uncompromising sister Mallika and why she has chosen to take a break for now with her relationship with Karan Bhojwani. Excerpts:

How did you become an actor?
I was born in Chennai, but when I was six months old, my parents moved to Australia. We lived there till I was two and moved back to India and lived here till I was 12, after which we did a lot of back and forth till we finally moved back to India in 2007 when I was 21. I actually got my first film Aisha as soon as I came here. I was modelling in Australia. I was at a 5-star coffee shop in Mumbai and was grabbing a coffee to get over a previous night’s hangover when I could see someone staring at me. I had not been in India long enough to recognise faces so could not recognise him till he came up to me and asked me my name and said, ‘You are a very beautiful girl.’ That’s when I realised that it was Anil Kapoor as he just said hello, introduced himself and left. Next day, he went home and told his daughter Sonam about me who told him, ‘Papa, I know Lisa, she is Karan bhaiya’s best friend’s (Karan Bhojwani’s) girlfriend’. Anil was producing Aisha and a year later, the Aisha team got in touch with my agency and I bagged my first role.

You have not done very many films. How did you keep yourself occupied? 
While I would love to do more roles like Queen, life has been perfectly busy and perfectly balanced. I have also been modelling, I did a TV show and launched my organic skin care range. I put a lot of emphasis on living life well and am a person who will take five holidays a year.

How much Vijaylakshmi (name of her character in Queen) are you in real life? 
I met my best friend Yasmine in Australia when I was 19 while searching for a launderette. There is a lot of me in Vijaylakshmi. I don’t think she has an agenda in life and does live in the moment in a way. There is no right or wrong for her, she has a kid and yet lives with her boyfriend. She is a quintessential western girl, but not in a typical way. She is just a good girl by heart who lives her life with faith. She is quite crazy and quite clumsy and I relate a lot with her being open-hearted. I feel someone who is open-hearted will always be attractive. It has taken a while for someone to see a Vijaylakshmi in me. You could look at me and say that here is this girl who is hot, but there are so many dimensions to me. If I go to Hollywood, they would not think twice before putting a gun in my pocket, but here they would rather put a bikini and an eye liner and curls. So I think that part was really difficult to get through, but finally, Vikas Bahl saw me in the right way.


Talk about your family?
My dad is a life coach and deconstructs HR departments and mom is a housewife. My parents are both open-minded free thinkers and it’s a blessing to have parents like that. My mom is an Australian, but she chose to come to India, work with Mother Teresa, hiked in the Himalayas and was a hippie. That as a choice is free thinking. And for my dad, who comes from a traditional Indian family, just to marry that kind of free-spirited open person is in itself free thinking so their love marriage in a sense itself is symbolic of a certain kind of lifestyle. We are eight siblings from the same two parents and we all live together, barring one of my brothers who lives in Australia. It’s unbelievable to come back home to a house full of family and love. We are all kind of the same age group where my oldest sister Mallika Haydon is 30 and the youngest is 18. My mom is amazing, both in her looks and as a person. Everything in my house is open for discussion and everyone pursues their own passion. My one brother is a chef, my two sisters run their ballet school, my one sister is a DJ, Mallika is an artist, I am an actor. It’s a really creative house. Ours is a social house where my dad will hang out with my brothers and have a drink in the evening.

What was your lowest emotional point in life?
I have always been a fan of supermodels. I went to see Cindy Crawford when she came to India. For me, it wasn’t vanity for vanity itself. I was curious about their lifestyle and moved to Australia. I was waitressing down the beach when a friend suggested I try modelling. I tried and became a model. I also became a yoga teacher. I was 20 when I was in a live-in relationship in Australia. The thing that defined me at that time was this relationship, till one day when I told him something he didn’t like and he kicked me out. I was jobless and I remember standing on the street with two suitcases not knowing where to go and did not know what I was going to do. I moved in with a childhood friend, but it changed my life. He was very Buddhist and he got me into vipassana and yoga. But I had put all my eggs into one basket. That was the beginning to the rest of my life. I have always put love first when it comes to my career. I am going through what I am going through right now because I want to have a strong sense of identity for myself. Life is not about choosing one particular lifestyle. I want the world to be boundless, limitless and I want to be able to be open to all kinds of possibilities and I know it is very difficult to put another person through this if he is not as free-spirited as me.

Do you see yourself getting married at any point in life? 
I am a believer in love. Do I believe in eternal love with one person? Yes, I do believe in that as well. But at this particular point in my life, I need to grow up by myself to really know who I am. When you are a team, you surrender yourself to the other person’s lap and don’t have your own identity. You can always melt into that, which is not super-healthy. So I think you need to have your own identity before you get into that ever lasting relationship.


Karan Bhojwani and you have been in a relationship for a long time. What is your relationship status currently? 
I am madly in love with him too. I am an adaptable person who is not materialistic and believe that while you could be adaptable, it is also important to hang onto your own and have your own identity. I am very loyal and not a floozy when it comes to love. I am also not good at losing friends or love and in that way I am insecure. Right now, we are not together and need to figure things out. Life can go either way.

Who is your emotional anchor? 
My mom and my older sister Mallika. Mallika’s an artistic person who has spent many years finding out what she wants to do, but someone who never makes any compromises with that and I respect her for that. She is not very social, but is very deep and is a rock who will always be there for you. In contrast, I will be chasing some dream or lying on a mountain or a beach or sleeping under ferry lights under Kabania feeding another hippie, as I too am one like my mom. My mom is more my friend than my mother and will always give me good advice. I am a lot like her. I am definitely difficult to live with. I am very dominating. I am super soft, but very outspoken. I am probably in my house the most loved person, but that doesn’t make me easy to live with even though I will cook dinner and will be emotionally there for everybody. I know I am my mom’s favourite hands down as the other kids don’t understand mom the way I do emotionally. It’s actually difficult to cross the barrier and seeing parents as human beings and not parents and knowing that they actually have their own journey, something you need to listen to and respect. I did that with my mother, so she and me have a special relationship. Of course, I feel bad for my dad as I don’t know what he got himself into with five daughters who are all nut jobs and are strong high-powered human beings.