As they only child of well-known journalist Anil Dharker and Imtiaz, a poet and artist, Ayesha grew up in a home surrounded with books. "I read so much that my life seemed to be all about these different characters and fantastic situations that were not reality. I guess, you could say that my job today is sort of an extension from that. Acting sort of landed on me!"

As a little girl, Ayesha showed absolutely no signs of stage fright and took part in almost every school play she could. At the age of 11, she made her screen debut in an Indo-French film, Maneka. She played the title role of a girl who could recall (and actually revisits) her past life.

In another two years, Ayesha was shooting big time in Ronald Joffe’s City of Joy, playing the daughter of Om Puri (a rickshaw-puller in Kolkata). She carefully watched each actor’s style, learning a "bit from everyone", as she says.

"At the age of 13, your mind is like a sponge," explains Ayesha. "Patrick Swayze (the hero) was very ‘method’ — starving himself to get a gaunt look — whereas Shabana Azmi (playing her mother) would get into the mood of the character by striking small talk conversations with anybody she met. Shabana is very instinctive and never broods over what her character’s motivation is."

But the actor who taught her the most was Om Puri. After City of Joy, he again played her father in The Mystic Masseur.

Now, when you see her as Queen Jamillia, matching line for line with Natalie Portman (playing Senator Padme Amidala of planet Naboo) in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, you’d find and Ayesha who has grown in maturity and confidence, far beyond her years.

But then, she is quick to dismiss all compliments. "My costume did the acting for me," she says of the huge weighty headdress, decorated with bronze accents, human hair and ten slabs of mother-of-pearl. MF