‘There are no camps in Bollywood’

Jyothi Venkatesh chats up Katrina Kaif about her role in Ali Abbas Zafar’s Mere Brother Ki Dulhan

After successful on-screen jodis with Akshay Kumar, Salman Khan and Ranbir Kapoor, Katrina Kaif, as a carefree Dimple Dixit, is all set to write another success story with Imran Khan in Mere Brother Ki Dulhan. The film, directed by Ali Abbas Zafar, is a young, fun-oriented romantic exaggerated tongue-in-cheek kind of comedy. Excerpts:

It’s a little bit larger than life and also louder like my film Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani. For Imran and me, it was a very new space. We didn’t know each other much and there had to be a fine-tuning, which eventually helped us to get into the characters that we are playing. It was a nice first film for both of us to do together. Though it was quite a tough character to play, my task has been made easier by director Ali Abbas Zafar, because having been one of the assistants on the sets of New York to Kabir Khan, he was privy to some of my inherent traits and had observed the streak of my madness sometimes and hence I should confess that though it was quite tough to do some of the loud scenes that my character in the film demanded, I enjoyed underplaying the role, because I had a thorough blast in the process.

Mere Brother Ki Dulhan deals with the brashness of the youth today. I hope the character that I have played in the film becomes very popular because Dimple Dixit is an uncomplicated girl. She is a normal girl, who you can find in any metropolitan city of India. She is part of today’s youth, who is attached to her family and does not mind shouldering her own share of responsibility but at the same also open to wearing whatever she fancies, whether it is jeans and T-shirt or salwar kameez.

To bring reality to her character, I learnt to play guitar and my knowledge about the instrument helped me portray the character of a rock singer more convincingly in the film. For an actor, it’s really easy to be a rock star. Wear some boots, wear some jeans, wear kajal, dishevel your hair, hold a guitar and strum the strings.

In case, you feel that I am actually "faking" it on screen, I should tell you that I know how to actually hold the guitar right as I know how to play it.

My hands are full because I am committed to do not only Ek Tha Tiger with Salman Khan but also a Yash Raj film with Shah Rukh Khan opposite me. I’m glad that I got an opportunity to work with a star like Shah Rukh Khan. So far I have worked with stars like Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, Hrithik Roshan and Abhishek Bachchan. I would love to work with each and every actor in the film industry. Now I am keen to work with actors like Aamir Khan and Shahid Kapoor. You get to learn a lot when you work with different actors.

There is a problem, there is a misconception that the media has created that there is a camp system. I do not think that there is anything called camp in the industry, which is more like a family though we all have different equations. Friendly, not so friendly, but everyone respects everyone’s individuality. I feel that there are no camps in Bollywood.

Just because I am the only female, who is working in Mere Brother Ki Dulhan, I’d not say that it is a heroine-oriented film. I would not say it is a love triangle. The film, which is a kind of comedy of errors, has a close resemblance to filmmaker Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s 1975 classic comedy Chupke Chupke.

I have been extremely lucky that I have had quite a number of good as well as successful films to my credit. If you ask me whether it has been a conscious strategy on my part, I’d say it is not because there is no way that you can plan something like this consciously. There has been no master grand plan. I have been just trying to do my best by putting my best foot forward as an actress. I should confess that I take a call whether I should do a role that comes my way, just by going by what my instinct says.

My new avatar is my endeavour to offer something fresh in each film to avoid being boringly predictable. Small things make the difference. You are doing two films a year. Even if you are showing something, which is a little different from the previous film, the audience doesn’t get bored. If I can do 15 per cent better or add on something with every film, then people would not bear the impression that I am not putting in my hard work. I should confess that I have worked hard to reach whatever success that I have garnered for myself till date, after making my bow with a film like Boom in which I was hardly noticed. Luckily for me, most of my films have worked at the boxoffice, though you just cannot plan at all. I have been part of the industry for eight years now.

I have done a two-minute guest appearance along with Hrithik Roshan in Main Hoon Krishna, besides a brief appearance in the title track of Body Guard. I have always held on to the belief that it is very necessary for you to help those people who have either worked for you or are still working for you. My hairdresser Promila Hunter is producing Main Hoon Krishna with Rajeev Ruia as the director and I could not say no to her when she asked me whether I would agree to do a special appearance in her film. As for my appearance in Body Guard, it was a special favour to Salman’s sister Alvira, who is a dear friend and like family to me.

I had thought of making a film by buying the rights of a French film, which I had liked when I had seen it abroad but then at the eleventh hour, I came to know that there were glitches in terms of the rights and hence dropped the idea of making a Hindi remake of the French film.

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