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Bollywood is treading a decidedly new path as it increasingly woos and wins over beauties from foreign climes and unusual backgrounds
In the 99 years that commercial Indian cinema has been in existence, it has celebrated a wide variety of screen divas — from the plain Jane to the sultry stunner, from the buxom bombshell to the svelte seductress, from the pure-as-driven-snow epitome of feminine virtue to the unstoppable femme fatale out to break brittle hearts…We love them all, don’t we? But the Indian movie industry has never seen anybody quite like Sunny Leone. The Indian-origin Canadian porn star is the first-ever recognised adult movie actress ever to make the transition to the status of Hindi film leading lady. Since landing in India to participate in Bigg Boss Season 5, Leone has conducted herself with the utmost grace and intelligence, handling the media and fans alike with equanimity. No wonder, she is making steady progress in Mumbai showbiz. The actor is currently shooting for Jism 2, directed by Pooja Bhatt. She has also been cast by Ekta Kapoor’s Balaji Motion Pictures in the upcoming Ragini MMS sequel. Leone is here to stay, with Bollywood having thrown its doors open to the Ontario, Canada-born 31-year-old star of a different universe. Her advent in our midst is proof of the fact that Mumbai cinema has shed much of its insularity and is letting winds from the West waft into its scheme of things. Leone is generating a giant media buzz for obvious reasons but she, certainly, is not the only contemporary actress who has arrived from beyond the seven seas and made headway in the Mumbai movie industry.
Indian cinema’s first North American import, Dorothy Kingdom, who starred in Suchet Singh’s silent mythological drama, Shakuntala, in 1920, is today a distant memory. But Australian-born Fearless Nadia, nee Mary Evans, continues to be a timeless Indian cinema legend. Is there any other path-breaker like her on the horizon that has the potential to join her in that exalted zone? Today, carrying on from where stunt queen Nadia left off, girls from different parts of the world are making a mark in cinema of made in Indian languages. Generally speaking, it is commercial Indian cinema’s growing clout as a thriving movie industry that has made it a favoured destination for models and actresses from abroad seeking a viable and lasting career in films. In more specific terms, the super Bollywood success of Katrina Kaif, a Hong Kong-born British-Kashmiri actress who can barely speak Hindi, seems to have helped dispel any inhibition that aspirants of her ilk had in the past regarding taking the plunge in Indian movies. So, unlike such flashes in the pan as Antonia Bernath (Kisna), Ilene Hamann (Rog) and Alice Patten (Rang De Basanti), the current lot of foreign newbies aren’t here for a one-off assignment. They have dug their heels in for the long haul. Just as well. They have added a welcome new hue to commercial Indian cinema. The list of such actresses is growing steadily — Liverpool-born Amy Jackson, New York-based Pakistani-Czech model Nargis Fakhri, Brazilian-Arab hottie Bruna Abdullah, British Indian beauty queen Preeti Desai, Sri Lankan actress Jacqueline Fernandez, Rio de Janeiro-born Nathalia Pinheiro (who has changed her surname to Kaur) and Giselli Monteiro, a Brazilian who made an impression playing a traditional Punjabi girl in Imtiaz Ali’s Love Aaj Kal. And we aren’t even talking about Czech beauty and item girl Yana Gupta (born Yana Synkova), who has, besides the "Babuji zara dheere chalo" chartbuster from Dum, appeared opposite Arjun Rampal in Ek Ajnabee, and a few films in the South. She was among the first to trigger the trend.
Most of these actresses have taken the international modelling, the Kingfisher Calendar shoot or the item number route to enter Bollywood; some have debuted in films down South before moving to Mumbai movies; and one, German-born, US-educated Elena Kazan, who majored in Modern Middle East Politics and History and once aspired to learn Arabic and work in Yemen, ended up in the world of Indian cinema quite by chance. As indeed did 21-year-old Amy Jackson. "I did not choose Indian cinema, it chose me," she says. Jackson made her Hindi debut earlier this year in Gautham Vasudev Menon’s Ekk Deewana Tha, playing a Malayali Christian girl opposite Prateik Babbar’s Marathi Kokanastha Brahmin boy, who wants to be a filmmaker. The accidental actress is now a full-fledged Tamil movie star. Jackson, a beauty queen who won numerous crowns (Miss Liverpool, Miss Teen World, Miss Teen Great Britain and Miss England runners up), saw her life take a completely unexpected turn when she landed a role in the Tamil film, Madarasapattinam (Madras City), which opened in 2010. Her next Tamil film, Thandavam, in which she has been cast opposite southern superstar Vikram, is due for release later this year. Jackson has now hired a Hindi tutor to learn India’s national language. She obviously has her sights set on a long innings in Hindi cinema. "I had no idea I wanted to act until South Indian director AL Vijay offered me a role in 2009," she says. All doubts have been set at rest. Pretty much the same happened with Kazan. "A career in films was far from my mind when I landed in India," she says. "It just happened." Kazan, who speaks fluent Hindi, was employed with an Indo-German trade body in Kolkata. "I was associated with an NGO and worked with people who knew only Hindi," she says. Her first brush with cinema was when she worked as a unit hand on an Australian film set in Kolkata, The Waiting City. One thing led to another and Kazan found herself doing small roles in Bengali-language films. She moved to Mumbai a year ago and her first Hindi film, Prague, directed by Ashish Shukla and co-starring Chandan Roy Sanyal, is scheduled for release in August. Next up is a thriller due to go on the floors in June. The latest to join the bandwagon is 24-year-old Nathalia Kaur, whose first Hindi film, Department, directed by Ram Gopal Varma, is ready for release. She features in an item song in the film. So impressed is RGV with this Indian-Brazilian model that he has already signed her on as the lead in a romantic thriller opposite Rana Daggubati. American fashion model Nargis Fakhri, 33, did not receive glowing reviews for her performance in Imtiaz Ali’s Rockstar, but she is on the move nonetheless. Her next film, Khiladi 786, has Akshay Kumar as her co-star. "I don’t mind criticism one bit," says the 2009 Kingfisher Calendar model. "It can only help me grow." Growth is exactly what these ladies are after. Preeti Desai, who debuted in Shor in the City last year, is now doing a cameo alongside her real-life beau Abhay Deol in Navdeep Singh’s Rock the Shaadi, described as a Bollywood zombie film. Desai made history in
2006 by becoming the first-ever girl of Indian descent to be crowned
Miss Great Britain. In 2008, she sizzled on the Kingfisher Swimsuit
Special Calendar. And her film debut marked her out as a talent to
watch. There is no doubt that, in the years ahead, we will be hearing
a great deal more of Preeti Desai and all the other aforementioned
names that are aiming for marquee status
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