Frieda Pinto created a buzz in India with her 2008 debut film Slumdog Millionaire. It lead to more script offers from Hollywood and Pinto never looked back. Born and raised in Mumbai, the 40-year-old actor describes her 17 years in Hollywood as a non-stop rollercoaster ride. “It’s been quite a ride, with the ups and the downs and lots of fighting my way through the industry. It’s finally reaching a place of feeling settled, not content, but settled in the way that I continue the fight. I feel like I have a say now, and I am taken more seriously than I was before,” she adds”.
In the second season of Surface, Apple TV’s taut psychological thriller, Frieda plays the mysterious Grace who makes her way into the echelons of British aristocracy. Grace is engaged to Quinn, played by Phil Dunster. Though welcomed into the closed world of the privileged, Grace, being biracial, would never be one of them. Frieda says the character resonated with her on many levels.“I grew up in India, started my career in America and have been in such situations where you are not entirely accepted. Being an outsider, one is bound to see things in a way, more critically than someone who is inside it. However, Grace is not as straightforward as one thinks her to be, so getting into her headspace was my biggest challenge.”
Frieda, who is credited with roles in films such as Trishna, Planet of the Apes, and Desert Dancer, is candid when she shares that for most of her career, she was being pigeonholed into what she calls the Sunshine Girl act. Surface also scores for its progressive casting, as the most powerful characters in the show are women, which was a big plus for the actor to come on board. “They were constantly casting me in the cheerful girl act, which became a norm of sorts post Slumdog Millionaire, and I detested it. Also, I cannot do the same thing over and over again. I was longing and hoping for something different, and when this character came along, she had something more to offer that wasn’t just a straightforward voice of reason. So I’m really glad that I got to dabble in a little bit of that.”
Frieda is forthright and frank and calls Surface an accurate representation of normalising women-led storylines, rather than merely serving the purpose of ticking boxes. She makes no secret that life post Slumdog Millionaire was a revelation, divulging that not only in 2008 was Hollywood unprepared for an actor like her, but also didn’t know what to make of an outspoken minority actress. “ Speaking out is scary, but that’s the only way one can educate people. I think the most important part of all of this is that I found my community. You always need to find people who believe in the things that you’re doing because there are always so many people who don’t believe in the things you’re doing, and you don’t want to be grouped with them. I think that’s been the biggest kind of win of these last 17 years, as my hopes are now being fulfilled.”
The enterprising actor had taken a two-year hiatus from films between 2018 and 2020. The actor launched her own production company, Freebird Films, in 2021, focusing on female-driven stories to uplift the struggles of women, mothers and girls, as well as empower them.
“I realised they weren’t going to tell the stories I wanted to, so I had to tell them myself.
Married to fashion designer Cory Tran, with whom she has a three-year-old son, Rumi Ray, the actor says her son, who accompanied her on the shoot, was rather confused. “He kept asking me why I was mad at Uncle Phil, and I had to explain it was all for show,” she says with a smile.