Priety gets candid on her singleton status and returns to commercial cinema with a vengeance. She had disappeared from mainstream cinema for two full years, on a quest to do something more meaningful in her life. So off the cuff, she showed off her acting chops in movies like The Last Lear and Deepa Mehta’s Heaven On Earth [in India it is called Videsh:Heaven On Earth.] In return she won the best actress award at the Toronto film festival for Heaven On Earth. But there’smore to her than the movies. The second season IPL has brought about more stakes than before.
Then there’s the charity work she has undertaken. She’s decided to sponsor 34 poor girls, take care of their education, clothing and food. Yes, Priety Zinta is getting bigger than her movies. if rumors about her split with Ness Wadia are making the rounds,she won’t dignify them with a quote. Prodded she says, “Babes, I’m tired of giving quotes on my relationship. I won’t talk about my personal relationship.” Instead, she delightfully recounts the year that was and how she broadened her horizons. Beginning with the one bright spot in her career, her role in Heaven On Earth. Though it was panned by critics in India, Priety was unperturbed.
“Most of our films are escapist, all they do is entertain you. But this movie is a slice of real life. The only thing cinematic about it is that it was shot. The film is based on not one but a couple of true stories. Ans its also been inspired by Girish Karnad’s play Nagamandala. The attempt in the movie is to highlight the plight of women and what happens even in todays’ times,” explains Priety. Whatever the fate of the film as an actor, she has done films for creative satisfaction, for money and to be part of a project, for co-stars because she loves working under certain production houses.
Heaven….. may not have the colours and hues of hardcore commercial cinema, but that is the hard fact of life, you can’t live in a la-la land forever, says Priety. She confides that she met several women who’d been victims of domestic voilence before she embarked on this project just to get a clear picture. ” I have never known anything like this before and it saddens me. Believe me, sometimes ignorance is bliss. I’ve been lucky that my parents have given me a good education, and gave my prother and me equal opportunities, and never tried to stunt our growth, There are girls frommiddle class families, who get married and if things dont’ work out, they have no way out,” she says.
According to her, this is the best time to be in the industry, saying that it is not about the hero or heroine anymore. ” Today there are no roles for actors below 25 years in Hollywood. The power roles come after 30, till the you are just faffing around. My logic is, if I want to do something, I’ll do it with aplomb. People said that I couldn’t play Indian charcters, because my body lnguage wsa too western, but I did Heaven…. and Heroes. people can never sat that again. I always beleive that God is on my team and I have the power to choose what I want,” she clarifies.