SHE is her own 'wanted' poster. She's smart, sharp, sleek, sweet, sultry, savvy and surprising. And in every other respect, she is sensational. On the eighth day, God created Dia Mirza. And it was really good.
Half peasant, half bombshell, Mirza is the raw stuff of daydreams, a mythical seductress with a figure so sublime it could make you bite a rock.
Dia is poised to make this the warmest October on record with her new film, Acid Factory.
I met the actress at Mehboob studio in Bandra for a quick one-on-one and, boy, she looked as dangerous as an acid.
I couldn't touch her but suffered three side-effects after meeting her - enhanced long-term memory, decreased short-term memory[2026] I forget the third.
What's a beautiful babe doing with not so good-looking men in the film?
Trying to make them all look good, and I think I've succeeded in doing that. The posters look exciting, don't they?
Your performance in Acid Factory reminds me of Angelina Jolie in Wanted.
I think because Max, the character I play in the film, is a tough woman. She is very feminine and sexy but at the same time she is strong. So I guess the vibe is in a similar space.
Was it exciting to make a film about people who have lost their memories?
That's the most exciting part. You've planted six people in the Acid Factory who have no memory and don't know how and why they got there. It's very easy to play characters if the plot is right.
My director, Suparn Verma, recalled a moment during the making of the film when Itold him that I didn't want to know anything about Max, where she is from, and so on. Usually, I do a character sketch for most of my films. For this one, I didn't want to know anything.
What do you mean exactly?
I mean that, sometimes, situations are more important than pretext. Your responses to what is happening within that moment are more important.
There are three things that I needed to know. One was: she was on the wrong side of the law, was unabashed about it and she was an extremely confident woman. The story of Acid Factory is a bird's eye view. Somebody else is telling you the story and that's what makes it exciting.
Any moment you can recall of having lost your memory?
No, but my mum has. I was actually talking to somebody yesterday and she said something really interesting to me. She said that she had lost her memory for six hours after falling off a bus, and a police case was filed.
She had no memory of her name, where she was from, nothing. But when they asked her to sign, she just signed her name. And I said: "That's what the film is all about."
When you lose your memory, you don't lose yourself. Your physicality, characteristics, intonation, reaction and your subconscious remains the same, right?
We hear a lot about Danny Denzongpa's etiquette? Is that man on a mission?
Yes. Danny stands for discipline. He is a class apart. I would just spend hours chatting with him in between shots. I mean, he is carrying history with him. He's been around for more than four decades. He has worked with all kinds of film-makers and so many actors.
I also found out that he has a brewery in Sikkim where he actually makes beer. He goes off into the hills and lives most of the time there. He has got a beautiful home in Juhu.
He has got a gorgeous son who is studying in London, and he is the kind of man who doesn't work past six in the evening.
He follows certain norms by which he lives all his life. He wakes up at six in the morning and goes for a swim. He swims for about 45 minutes and is as fit as a fiddle. He is an institution and it's really unfortunate that people don't give him his due credit. I think my generation hardly knows him, but they should.
Tell us about Manoj Bajpai.
I've worked with Manoj Bajpai in Dus Kahaniyan. He is super fun and is actually quite
a brat. People think that Bajpai has this really serious image about him but he can be really funny and can get naughty sometimes. He is the one who is thinking like: "Whose arm am Igoing to twist today and who am I going to bully today?" (laughs).
Four more to go - Dino, Aftab, Fardeen and Irrfan.
Dino is again somebody with whom I've worked before. He is a wonderful person. Dino is too nice, actually.
Aftab is a bit of a loner. He usually keeps to himself because after pack-up we never really saw him. We only heard his music. That's the way he is made. Nobody was offended by it but, of course, we ragged him for not making it to all the after parties.
Fardeen is one of the most well-read, dignified and charming men I know. He is so under-rated. And Irrfan has proclaimed to the world what he is all about and we have accepted it. Irrfan is also an institution.
There is one more. One who is fit to be a princess - Dia Mirza.
She has worked so hard. To train is one thing, and we all work hard, but I think after I read the script of Acid Factory, I understood that I had to work 300 times harder on this one. It was very important to see her strength exude, even in a photograph where she is just standing next to so many men.
And because she had to be on par with them, she had to reflect that strength. I had to do an am to pm workout with my trainer, Rakesh Udyar. I used to train for two hours in the morning, two hours in the evening, go all the way to Film City at 5am to train with Tinu Varma for the action sequences for three hours, drive back and hit the gym, go back home, catch a nap, wake up, run back to the gym again and... phew.
It was tough, but I enjoyed it because Idiscovered new levels of strength that I never ever thought I had. It was a huge self-realisation.
Will a film like Acid Factory question the intelligence of the audience?
Not at all. People will love it. I think I am a fairly intelligent person. I've seen the film and I loved it. I didn't have a problem with anything.
I hate when people say that it's an action film. Yes, action is a part of the film, but it is about the plot and what these guys are doing in the factory.
Will a film like this work overseas?
Yes, it's time for films like these to also work overseas. Indian films are moving away from the usual romantic dramas and comedies.
