After a five year break from Bollywood (barring her cameos in Happy Ending and Welcome to New York, actor Preity Zinta is back on the big-screen as a boisterous, free-spirited but constantly insecure housewife in Bhaiaji Superhit. The comedy entertainer reunites Zinta with Sunny Deol, who plays a flamboyant Varanasi gangster with a desire to make it big in the movies. Known for portraying chirpy and uptown characters in her earlier films, Preity feels content to have finally explored her desi and fiery side as Sapna Dubey in the film.
“In my career, I’ve mostly been offered modern, sophisticated or highly educated roles. I was very happy when our director Neerraj Pathak approached me for the part of Sapna Dubey, which is a full-on patakha role. The closest I’d ever come to playing such a character was of Madhubala in Chori Chori Chupke Chupke (2001),” says Preity.
To look the part of an earthy UP housewife, Preity stuffed her wardrobe with Banarasi handloom sarees, which she rues is a dying art, and also wore sindoor. “I never knew applying sindoor would be so difficult. It would vanish on its own between shots, pulled down by the heat and sweat. We also tried using a liquid sindoor which gave me a big rash on my head.”
The most difficult part though, Preity agrees, was getting her accent right. “I had to nail the Bhojpuri style of speaking. On top of that, my character is extremely fond of English and even though she is 12th fail, she thinks she speaks better English than the queen of England. So incorporating all those variations were challenging. I had an excellent accent trainer on the film called Meenu ji who helped me a lot.”
Born into an army family in Rohru, Himachal Pradesh, Preity made her acting debut in a supporting role in Mani Ratnam’s Dil Se..(1998). The same year saw the release of Soldier —Abbas-Mustan’s cult classic action-thriller that paired Preity opposite Bobby Deol, as well as Premante Idera, her debut Telugu film opposite Venkatesh.
Preity credits her friendship with Bobby as what led to her long-standing association with Sunny Deol through films like Dillagi, Farz, The Hero: Love Story of a Spy, and Heroes. “I’m Bobby’s close friend. I’ve never had much of a personal equation with Sunny. He still speaks little, although his arm has gone from weighing 2.5kgs to 4.5 kgs. His dancing skills, too, haven’t bettered,” Preity joked.
Hindi cinema is what Hindi films are—extremely entertaining, she believes. “People say that content-driven and female-oriented films are finally getting made but I feel they have been around since Mother India. What has changed is that there’s a lot more national pride in our cinema now.”
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