Kangana loves living a role

Kangana Ranaut had me nearly eating out of her hands as she opened her fist and softly asked whether I would like some of the purple grapes she was daintily munching.

I foolishly refused, but the atmosphere was heady enough already with incense wafting around her villa at Al Qasr, she smiling shyly and a light drizzle outside the window.

“It seems like a hill station,'' said the award-winning actress, who was born in Manali, a small town in Himachal Pradesh, speaking about the rains in Dubai.

She nearly did not make it to the Film Festival here because of a four-hour delay at the Global Indian Film Awards in Kuala Lumpur where she won the Best Debutante Award for her role in the movie Gangster.

She received her award and rushed out of the venue, but it was too late. She luckily got a later flight and landed, “just in time for the red carpet''.

The 24-year-old, who started off as a fashion model and a theatre actress, is the first Indian to win the Best Actress Award at the Asian Awards for First Films, in Singapore, again for her debut role in Gangster. “I am swimming in the clouds,'' she said at the time.

Asked what kind of role she would like to do next, she inadvertently took a dig at some of the big names in Bollywood and said, “Not something that has been done before. Something that will give me a challenge. Roles like Umrao Jaan, Paro, don't excite me.'' (Both, incidentally, are Aishwarya Rai roles.)

She said that she loved to experiment with her characters. “I love the idea of living someone else's life,'' she said.

Ranaut also features in Mahesh Bhatt's movie, Woh Lamhe (Those Brief Moments) where she plays the role of another hugely popular actress, Parveen Babi, who in real life slowly lost her mind.

Kangana said she got into movies “by chance and good luck''.

“Every sixth person in the world is an Indian,'' she said, explaining the huge popularity of Bollywood movies worldwide. “Aloo aur Indian har jaga milte hain (You can find potatoes and Indians everywhere).''