|
|
|
|
|
| HOME | MOVIES | QUOTE MARTIAL | |||
|
September 19, 1997
BILLBOARD
|
Mirror, mirror...
We talk about compromises and taking the middle path. What about you? "I'm not so much into compromises. I'd rather sacrifice. Because if you have understanding between two people, then why shouldn't that understanding be complete? Why should it be that I'll walk this much and you'll walk this much? You give that up completely. I'd rather sacrifice, and give in to a situation. I'd rather just say, forget it, I'll walk it all the way or you walk it all the way, I'm just made that way." Is this attitude in relationships, or other aspects of life too? "In every aspect of life. I don't believe there is anything called compromise, because compromises don't last long. The minute you compromise, you start blaming the other person for every loss you have in life. 'Because I did this for you, I'm going through this in life'. Why go through that? Just say I did that for myself. It's never like I'm going to compromise on my smoking. I going to smoke only three a day. It's never that way -- either I smoke or I do not smoke it." After winning the Miss India Crown, you had a lot of ideas of doing good for society, and helping out in social causes. Tell me did your illusions shatter? You had joined K J Alphons. Why did you leave him? "I wanted to join a social organisation, I joined K J Alphons's organisation because it wasn't affiliated to any political organisation and it had no intentions of becoming one. It was a social organisation and I wanted to be part of it. So that when people come to me for help I had some power to help them, because they feel Sushmita Sen hai. She will be able to solve my problem. But it's not possible because all of us have our own limited powers, no matter what we say. Yes, we can help you get to someone who can help you do it, but not directly. By joining K J Alphons I thought I would be able to utilise that power to some good use, because I realised you do need some kind of backing to help people, you just can't say, yeah, I'll help you and you can do it overnight. "After a point I was moving to Bombay. I had realised that in the eight months I had joined the organisation, I had not done a single thing for which I had joined the organisation, I decided I'd rather be on my own and not responsible to an organisation that might be doing something wrong or not be taking care of something right. I don't want to be blamed for anything, because when someone comes to me I don't want to be saying, you go there for help. In case that person doesn't get help, I'll feel very bad." And now you ever have to do that? "No I don't do that any more. I just tell the other person, that here is this person I know who will help you. Besides, I don't have to be part of an organisation. I have realised that, and to be part of an organisation, an active organisation, calls for a lot of responsibility. At this point of my career, I have just had a flop and I'm going on doing all these other films. I believe that until and unless you are secure about your own standing you have no business going around saying, yeah, yeah I can do this for you. I need a very strong footing in whatever I'm doing. I still do it but on a very small scale. I still work with orphan children but I don't go out and make a show of it, because most people who end up to come in to publicise the organisation, end up publicising me. The organisation does not benefit from it, so it is better to save the children from all those flashes and all those irritable people, coming and kissing and touching, I'd rather just do my thing and do it quietly for as long as I can. Whenever I have the finance and time for the responsibility, I'll probably run an organisation myself." What was life like after winning the Miss Universe crown? Why did you come back from the US? "See I'll tell you, professionally, this country is the best country for me, I'm first going to talk only on a professional basis. It's my country, it's people appreciate me. People don't realise that people can't become famous or celebrities or whatever you call it unless and until people recognise you to be one. India recognised me to be one. I knew that if I had to work I wouldn't have to struggle in India again, whereas I would have to do so abroad.
"I always wanted to do a clothing line, and if I do it, I want to do it both in India and abroad. It will require for me to be at least six months there and six months here, to take care of both businesses. If everything works out well, I will be in both places. But definitely India is going to be my permanent home." But what happened abroad that you choose to consider a career as an actress when you had plans of opening your own clothing line? Was the experience so bad? "I would never in my dreams say it was a bad experience. It was the most amazing experience, and if I could live through it again I would love to. But you gotta move on. Life over there was very beautiful from the first moment. "It was the first time in my life that I saw a first class seat. It was also for the first time in my life I travelled 21 hours continuously in a plane. I thought I'm going to be sick because I had never travelled for more than two hours. But that day I was so tired after the pageant, that once I got on the plane, I put my head on my manager's shoulder and closed my eyes. When I opened them again I was landing in Los Angeles. I could not believe it. Here I was landing in America. I cleared immigration and, coming out, there was Bill, my chauffeur for the whole year. For the first time in my life I saw a 12-seater limousine. It was like a dream. "They just took me in my car and first I dropped my manager home, 'cause her home came first -- she lived in Santa Monica and I lived in Wiltshire. My apartment manager came down and helped me with my luggage. She took me up to my condominium, which was on the sixth floor of this building, gorgeously done in off-white, with a lovely room. For the first time I learned what a walk-in closet is all about. There was a swimming pool on top of the terrace. I remember the first day I landed there, I didn't do anything. I just sat at the balcony and looked down from the sixth floor at the streets of Wiltshire. The cars were going up and down, and it was very windy, California has lovely weather, so I was standing up there, and there were so many lights and I said to myself, "Amazing, huh!" "Just a few hours ago I was somewhere else, I was doing something else, and just a few hours later here I am in a totally different world. I didn't know what I was going to do there, but life had changed so much in a couple of hours that by the time I realised this it was 5:30 in the morning. I remember my manager Joan knocking at the door and asking. 'What have you been doing?' And I say I have been just sitting outside for a while and she says, 'Not for a while. You have been sitting outside the whole night.' And I was like 'Yeah, it's morning.' I opened my bags put everything in the closet, walked out and went to the swimming pool, and it was just like a dream. I must have pinched myself to death at least like a million times, and then life just started after that. "I had trips to go to. I visited 33 countries, I met almost 22 presidents and first ladies and millions of tourism ministers 'cause I was promoting India. And I went to so many different events that I don't remember how many they were. Breakfast, lunch and dinners... And Miss Universe really put on weight. I went to San Francisco for eight hours to learn etiquette, protocols, how to meet the president, what not to say, how to introduce him, how to get into a limousine without your rear protruding out. Basically, to do everything gracefully. They teach you seven plate setting dinners, and then they put you through a public relations class, for almost a week; how much to speak about religion, how much not to, about issues that are very close to peoples sentiments. They teach you everything prim and proper. Then you go shopping which is the best part of it all... "On December 1994, I went to Cairo, Egypt, to address a population conference. It takes place once in 10 years. Luckily, I had taken population control as my topic. From the United Nations they got me many different books with statistics of different countries, especially Africa, Asia and South America, which is where you have the maximum population. I had to study for almost a month, and I almost felt like I was in a university. "Addressing the conference is not just like going up on the podium and speaking. You have to speak, and then after a minute's break the audience starts asking you questions. Which is why you have to know what you are talking about, so whatever you speak your information should be absolutely accurate and you should know it thoroughly. There was Newt Gingrich, Jane Fonda and Ted Turner... "I went for all these events, the Oscars for both years, when Tom Hanks won it back to back with Philadephia in '94 and Forrest Gump in '95. I remember I hadn't watched The Shawshank Redemption completely. I was feeling very tired so I went to slept midway and I kept on telling everyone 'damn boring film' and the next thing I know is that's it's nominated and won. I had to go to different countries and work for organisations for old people and children. We used to carry these little Miss Universe dolls -- they were actually brooches in shape of dolls -- as gifts to the places which we visited. "I did a lot of things, travelled a lot. At every place I went I was asked about India and I was asked the most dumb questions in the most intelligent of nations, like 'How do you speak English?' I was like, 'Excuse me. I do agree that we have illiteracy in our country but English is our second language and our grammar is more correct than your slang English. I would be asked this at every press conference. 'I see I see. We have heard that there's no electricity on most parts of India and we have heard that you are always having problems like plague and other diseases?' "I remember constantly telling them you people have such a wrong notions of India, I think you should go out and see India. What's written in the books and books have to be reviewed and rewritten every year. And some people don't even do that, so what you read may be 10 years older. One of my favourite lines was that India is the only place in the world where you can see a Mercedes Benz and a bullock cart at the same place. Where else can you see that?
A long curl of ash is poised on the end of the cigarette, propped in the limp hand on the lap. And despite having it easy getting in the industry, the struggle has begun once again to reach the top, to prove herself. You wanted to have it fast and wanted to escape the struggle, and here you are struggling and fighting again. "Life is filled with struggles, one day you feel- I did it- It's over- I made it. The next morning you get up and you know it is not over baby, it's just started, and it shouldn't be over, because if giving my 10th standard examination was the end of it I would never be a graduate, so you have to move on, after my 12th standard exams got over one could say, Hah, my education is over, but education can go on for life, you can keep studying every day for your life and you learn something every day. So when that doesn't end, then how can your ambitions and your goals come to an end? So they keep happening, from one point to another to another. "Miss India was one goal I achieved, Miss Universe was the other. I wanted to be an actress, as an actress I have achieved it, because I'm happy with my acting, I don't believe in giving those 'modesty' lines as in 'yeah I was okay but I could have done better', because everyone knows that we can always do better than what we have done today, but I don't like understate myself, I was happy with my performance in Dastak, enough to give me a boost to believe that I can do this more often if I get the right directors and actors. If I'm pushed into doing something I can do it, and I said okay I'll do more of them (films), and I got encouraged, and now I'm doing seven of them." What was the reason that Dastak flopped? "In our country if you make two films on the same subject they are considered to be the same thing, obsession is a subject, but the stories are different, one can have an obsession for ones wife for one's children for whatever, all relationships are different, why is that in America you have so many films being made , and a lot of them have very similar emotions, because people don't see them as the same film, people started comparing it to Darr and that was bad for the film. Also it was released at the wrong time. Had it been released before Darr and all these other films it was sure to be a success. I don't know about the technical side about the film, I'm going to be biased about the film because it was my first film. Just because a film becomes a hit it doesn't mean that it's a good film and just because a film is a flop doesn't make it a bad film. It just didn't become a hit. "My definition of success is that it's delayed failure. So failure is something that's constant, it's definite, success will only come but it's delayed. What is more important is failure; success will come in it's own time, so failure is constant and that is something I have learned to live with. Mahesh Bhatt is said to work wonders with newcomers though he may have lost out on Dastak. What did she learn from him? "What I learned from Mahesh Bhatt is to be completely shameless in front of the camera. Forget how your face looks, forget that if I make a face like this it will be funny. That is the reason I never went to classes. I just went as I was. He is a very comfortable director to act with because he is a actor's director. He'll never tell me you have to stand there because the lighting is done that way. If while rehearsing my lines I start walking in the shot, he will take two more hours and change the entire lighting to my convenience and then shoot the scene. That gives the actors a lot of freedom to come alive. He gave me that opportunity to completely come alive in front of the camera and he taught me that you can be in any frame of mind before a shot, but when the camera starts to roll, you must forget everything and come back to your lines, he taught me what it is to be very, very convinced about what I do, to be very sure and definite of what I'm saying. A lot of times there are dialogues in Hindi films like 'Humme aap se mohabbat ho gai hai'. Now, in real life, I would never be able to say that, but he taught me to overcome that problem.
Sitting in her chair, Sushmita looks the epitome of success. But behind that facade lies the monster called fear, the fear that gnaws on her everyday, fear of success, fear of failure, fear of no work, fear of age, fear of mistakes, fear of slip-ups, fear of being caught on the wrong foot. Amidst that, she keeps her balance, smiling, laughing... Acting. Are you secure? "See I'm very much secure today, because I have made a place for myself, but I'm insecure in the way that I'm never too sure of it, because you see I'll never go to a restaurant and say I'm so and so and that I want a seat, what if that person turns around and says "so what if you are so and so, we so do not have a seat" that I cannot take." So have you ever used your name to get you something? I have never used my name ever. In fact, there are times when some friend of mine will say let me call up the hotel and tell them your name and make the reservation. I go like, No please, don't do that. Don't use my name. If they, out of their own goodness, say, Oh madam it's for you, we'll make the necessary arrangements, then I'll be grateful to you. So you see, that much of insecurity I always keep. Because if I don't keep even that, then I'll become like some people who I know who go around making a big fuss about who they are when people don't give a damn. I have seen that happening in front of my eyes and that's very disgraceful. I'd rather be a nobody and get treated as a someone, rather than try to show I'm somebody and get treated as a nobody." So how do you make yourself succeed? "Nothing, every time I feel like I can't do something, that's the only way I can do something. So the best way to make me do something is just to push me against a wall, and the minute you push me against the wall, I'll bounce back." You are against a wall right now? "Almost there." Why? "Just generally... Situations." And.... "That's mostly it. The image of mine that's being created, and I know somewhere down the line that in this whole image business. You are as good as your last film. You could be the biggest boozard in the world, with the worst kind of attitude problem. You have a hit and... 'Such a lovely attitude this person has got. What a workaholic. All that crap'. That's what I don't like, I don't like duplicity in people -- either you are against me or for me, and if you are against me then you let me know, and if you are for me I'll see it. So please don't change every Friday, because my opinion of you won't change every Friday, it will just change one Friday. That's it." Have you been able to achieve your dreams? "My dreams keep happening to me as soon as one dream gets over, right now my ambition is to be a successful actress....not a star....actress. And then I want to get into my clothing business, and that is something I want to do for the rest of my life."
"I don't touch alcohol. I only drink a Coca Cola or a Thums Up, even if I take a drop of wine I'll drop down. Most people who form this judgement that I drink have never even met me. So it's wrong to form an judgement like that. As far as being a smoker is concerned, yes, I do smoke. As far as being a party pooper is concerned, my only party is when I come on the sets and go back home. Because I have partied a lot when I was 17-18 at that stage, I look forward to lots of things, bigger and better things than partying, and I have much bigger responsibilities today than to just go out and have a blast. As far as the press conference is concerned, nobody is crazy enough to go out and make a public display of ones emotions, but sometimes people do go out of control, I did not cry because people misbehaved with me or said something. I cried because I was talking about something very close to me, it was just something that I was discussing that these are the mainline press people who had made Sushmita into Sushmita Sen this huge big thing. Otherwise, no magazine and paper would have been writing about me. That was the reason I gave the press conference only to the mainline press because I knew that it was the film press that was messing me up. I did not invite them and as I was speaking to them I got very emotional, because these are the people who had made me. I got very emotional because I was telling them what had happened. I do not regret at all crying there, because it's an emotion like laughing, and if I can smile in public and laugh in public, why can't they see tears in my eyes? I don't think it's such big deal." You have lived a lifetime in 21 years. What have you lost in life? "Frankly, I don't even care right now. In the last 21 years I have achieved so much more. I have got a lot more than I have lost, and I only think of what have got. The most important thing I have lost is my privacy, from being a so-called celebrity, but then I guess you have to pay a price for everything in life." Are you happy? "Happiness in life is to be in complete agreement with myself, not to be confused, not to be cautious about everything I do, to be able to be completely impulsive, to walk out in the rain and get completely wet, and not worry about being sick. I'm completely impulsive. If I want a pool table today then I want a pool table today. I'm like that, being around the people I love makes me happy, pack up makes me happy. "When I'm disappointed with something, when I'm not in agreement with myself, I get sad when I go to the orphanages and see the kids. I don't pity them but I do feel sad for those people who will never know what it would be to become parents and have children who would be a bundle of joy for them. I feel sad for them because they keep on crying and yelling in their rooms, but they don't have that one arm the one hand which will come and pick them up and keep rocking them till they sleep." Are you at peace with yourself? "Most of the time." When are the times when you are not at peace with yourself? "When I'm not in agreement with myself." When you are not in agreement with yourself? "Depends on the situation, I'm not in agreement with myself when people around me confuse me for instance, or when I decide I'm going to do this and suddenly something goes wrong. Or if my dad or mom or somebody says you can't do that. When you have already decided something with yourself and you can't do it because you have to keep other people happy. I mean I would love to go on the streets for a walk outside my house but I can't do that, because I'll create unnecessary trouble and I won't be able to do it with peace..." What constitutes your confidence? "My belief in myself, I have a lot of faith in myself." It shows in herself. And in me.
|
|||||||||
|
Tell us what you think of this feature
|
||||||||||
|
HOME |
NEWS |
BUSINESS |
CRICKET |
MOVIES |
CHAT
INFOTECH | TRAVEL | LIFE/STYLE | FREEDOM | FEEDBACK |
||||||||||
