Happy Birthday Lara Dutta: Throwback To The Time When Andaaz Actress Opened Up About Comparisons With Co-Star Priyanka Chopra
On Lara Dutta's birthday, here's to the time when she spoke about comparisons with her Andaaz co-star Priyanka Chopra
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She once told me she was named Lara after the heroine in her mother’s favourite film Dr Zhivago. I don’t know Lara Dutta well. But I’ve always felt very positive vibes from her. Our conversations have always been impersonal and she has never called herself a friend or a sister or a daughter - relationship catchphrases that mean nothing, absolutely nothing, in the entertainment industry. I’ve met her just once, and it didn’t go well. I had gone to meet a director-friend on the set of a film. Lara was one of the leading ladies in the multi-starrer. The director informed me she was in her van. Would I like to meet her? I of course agreed happily since Lara and I had been talking for some time. The director knocked on the van and we entered. Lara hastily got up from her recliner where she was napping in a sequined ghagra-choli ensemble for a dance number.
Later I sent her a text saying, ‘That didn’t go too well, did it?’ She agreed. This is the quality that I like about Lara. She remains honest. No false smiles, no sucking up to directors and heroes. No compromises, Priyanka Chopra and Lara Dutta started off together in my friend Suneel Darshan’s Andaaz. Between the two I thought Lara was going to be the big star. She had a good role in Andaaz and she went on to give some good performances in films like Dilli Chalo, Billu and David. But her career never took off in the way it should have.
Lara had spoken about the comparisons once during an interview with me. “We competed on the same level for the Miss India contest though I had been modelling before. We trained and won together and even won international crowns in the same year. I could not have hoped for a better co-star. The makers of Andaaz wanted to cash in on Miss Universe and Miss World, that's me and Priyanka Chopra, being cast together. Both of us came from an 'out-there' field like modelling and we were comfortable with our bodies. We knew what we were doing and wearing. No compromises were pushed on us. I can only speak for myself and say I was very comfortable with whatever I wore in Andaaz. I wore what today's college girls wear.”
Did Lara see Priyanka as competition? Lara reply was candid but cautious. “We are very different actresses. She has different aspirations. I want to build a base for myself as an actress so that, tomorrow, a filmmaker will have the confidence to cast me in a role like Nargis' in Mother India. I don't want to burn myself out. I don't want to be seen in every second film. I don't want the audience to say, 'Oh no, she's in this one too.”
Surely there must have been a competitive edge? “There was! But that helped both of us perform better. And I would much rather compete with Priyanka, whose career has grown alongside mine. Besides, she's very talented. We advised each other like two veteran actresses whenever the other would mess up a shot."
Lara’s interest in acting started early. “I have been involved with theatre since I was 13. I never seriously thought I would get into movies though I had every intention of continuing with theatre. To be brutally honest, when you win a title like Miss Universe, your entire life turns topsy-turvy for one year. Coming from Bangalore, I suddenly saw a large world of opportunities open up before me, movies being one of them. Again, to be honest, I had no idea what the Indian movie industry was like. What I heard made me skeptical. But it was also a chance to go forward in life.”
Image source: SpotboyEarchives
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