She may have done just one film until now but Sonakshi Sinha is such a pro that it seems she has been at it for years. She smiles enigmatically when she spots the sparkle of flashbulbs; she turns up in Indian outfits at events; and is friendly and polite to nearly everyone.
She is a sort of Miss Congeniality who says the right things, does the right things, rarely finding herself in a controversial spot. “If you want me to make controversial statements or blast my contemporaries or seniors, now I don’t do that — let’s say I can’t do that,” she says. “That’s why I am never in the headlines for wrong reasons. At home, we were taught to behave properly and respectfully and even today I follow those rules. I am here to do my work and do it honestly. That’s all that matters.”
Nearly two years since Dabangg happened, her image of Rajo and those pots, and that famous line of hers ‘thappad se dar nahin lagta saab, pyaar se lagta hai’, refuse to shake off. Dabangg comes up for discussion even while she has moved on from it, and is, in fact, right into the midst of Rowdy Rathore, her new film with Akshay Kumar.
“I think some films are just meant to be larger-than-life and they become so big that they walk along with you all your life. Dabangg is like that but it’s a film I am very proud of — and will always be,” she says. Like Dabangg, in Rowdy Rathore, too, the actress smells of a kind of earthiness that has been missing from Bollywood for long. But the village belle routine (in this case, she plays a girl from Patna, Bihar, her father Shatrughan Sinha’s hometown) was never intentional, she swears. “I am a city girl by nature but there is certainly a very Indian side to my looks, and that could be the reason why filmmakers want to cast me in such roles. I don’t have a problem playing the girl-next-door and similarly if I get a script where I am a girl with Western values, I would take it up because as an actor, I would not like to be typecast. But I must tell you that so far the films and roles I have chosen are purely by instincts. If my heart says I should do a certain role, I do it without thinking about the end result.”
Sonakshi is the opposite of other actresses who constantly fret over their looks. In the age of well-toned bodies, she celebrates her voluptuousness, like Vidya Balan. Upon the mention of Vidya, she gets excited, her eyes roll. “Vidya’s unconventional success is encouraging for female actors who are otherwise considered secondary in the scheme of things. I respect her and her choice of films. It takes sheer guts for someone to do The Dirty Picture or Kahaani.”
Unlike the Poonam Pandeys and Veena Maliks who are ready to bare it all, Sonakshi is conservative in her opinion over the role that nudity and skin exposure play in the success of a modern-day Bollywood heroine. “I can never do what others can,” she says, explicitly. Consequently, bikinis and skimpy, itsy-bitsy outfits are a strict no-no but she makes it plain that it’s got nothing to do with her father’s so-called diktat. “Forget about my father, I myself wouldn’t be comfortable wearing them. An actor should act, don’t you think?” she asks, point blank.
As a former student of fashion designing, the actress says she wouldn’t mind opting for a trendy makeover in one of her films, if an opportunity presents itself. “Fashion was my first love. I never thought of joining the industry. So, if fashion comes back to me through films, I should say I am ready.”