Straight Answers

Perizaad Zorabian, Actress, On how variety is the spice of her reel life. A movie star with an MBA degree. Why the career shift? After completing my MBA in New York, I intended to return home. But as fate would have it, I had a friend who was doing a course in acting and I felt acting would be an interesting diversion. I joined the Lee Strasberg School of Acting. Later, I returned home and joined my father's business. Eight months later, I was offered an ad for a skin cream and, subsequently, did theatre (Kunal Vijaykar's Unfaithful), a TV serial Hum Pardesi Ho Gaye, followed by Bollywood Calling. After this, I pursued films as a full-time career. How has life been after Bollywood Calling? As of now, I am waiting for the release of Subhash Ghai's Jogger's Park and Pritish Nandy's Mumbai Masala. In between, I have done a couple of international films —Namaste and Bandung Sonata. My forthcoming films include Mahesh Dattani's Morning Raga with Shabana Azmi and Tanuja Chandra's as yet untitled comedy. What have you learnt while working with big names? Humility. Be it Om Puri, Victor Banerjee, Shabana Azmi or Rahul Bose, they don't throw attitude. From Nagesh Kukunoor, I have learnt discipline. What kind of roles appeal to you? I am as comfortable with commercial Hindi films as I am with offbeat movies. I want to explore the entire spectrum, work in all kinds of cinema and reach out to every kind of audience.