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Hers is a face that launched several if not thousand brands. Cover girl of leading fashion magazines, she has been a head-turner in more ways than one. However, today supermodel-turned-actor Lisa Haydon stuns you as much with her looks as with her acting skills. In Queen, she may not have shared as much screen time as its lead protagonist Kangana Ranaut but nevertheless left an indelible impact. Lisa Haydon, the sultry beauty with legs to die for, vowed audiences and critics alike both with her exuberant presence and sterling performance. Without hesitation, she says, "No doubt life changed dramatically since Queen as many doors opened after that. Otherwise who would have cast me in an Akshay Kumar film?" As she is all set to delight viewers again in Shaukeens, a remake of yet another Basu Chaterjee film, she gladly handles a volley of queries on remakes, being half-Indian and half-Australian and above all how beauty can be a double-edged sword. First things first, Shaukeens, she informs you, is not really so much a remake as an adaptation. She was given express instructions not to watch the original for the makers didn’t want to end up making just a copy. Akshay Kumar, who plays himself in a guest role in the film, is producing the film. While she enjoyed a great sense of camaraderie with "warm and wonderful" Akshay, in the film, she also rubs shoulders with three of Hindi cinema’s ingenuous actors. Expectedly she goes ga ga over Anu Kapoor, Piyush Mishra and Anupam Kher, who are reprising the parts of three lecherous men with a glad eye for her. She avers, "Being in the same space as actors of such great calibre is an amazing experience."
On her own transformation from supermodel to an actor, she says, "Modelling is all about perfection. Besides, you walk the ramp expressionless for you have to let the clothes do the talking. However, in acting you have to bring out the foibles of characters and that’s why it requires a different set of skills." Of course, when you are as beautiful as she is, people do tend to judge and dismiss you as well. But then having grown up in a family of eight siblings what with sister Mallika Haydon, also a well-known model, Lisa knows too well that the spotlight need not always rest on her. Not surprising despite having a cameo character, she found her comfort space in Queen. Interestingly while she could truly relate to Vijaylakshmi of Queen, Shaukeens’ Aahana is an antithesis to her being. She confesses that she is nowhere close to the crazy delusional Aahana of Shaukeens, who lives in her own world. So what is Lisa really like? Well, she is more Indian than Australian and thus more traditional and conservative than people imagine her to be. Of course, that is not to say that the Australian blood does not shape her world view, especially the streak of independence and her urge to travel. In Bollywood, however, she doesn’t have a set roadmap or definite goalposts, only wants to be an original. Whether Bollywood, which expects actors to conform to a particular style has room for such originality or not, doesn’t matter. She is willing to be the change that she wants to see in the filmdom and has no intentions of following the herd. Be the trendsetter and you can be a winner, she has proved it once. More than once, only her next film will tell. However, she insists that be it Vijaylakshmi of Queen or Aahana of Shaukeens, she invests the same amount of emotion and energy in her characters. Will she be able to transform Aahana into yet another delightful and memorable character, she is excitedly ready for the test.
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At a personal level
while she found Anu Kapoor gregarious and Piyush Mishra full of beans,
it was with Anupam Kher that she truly bonded. "His journey and
uphill struggle truly fascinated me."