Sonam kapoor: A Girl Uninterrupted

Girl Uninterrupted Having pulled off the best performance of her career, Sonam Kapoor reveals why she can’t talk of Neerja in the past tense and why superstardom is boring. 

- Divya Unny

Sonam Kapoor isn’t the most ambitious actress you’ll meet. She does one film a year. Takes a couple of months off to travel and read. She doesn’t follow the example of her contemporaries, who are racking up offers from Hollywood. And she cares to measure her performances only against her own previous work. She isn’t part of the rat race, is glad to travel on a parallel track, and more importantly, at her own pace. It takes some self-assurance to be as secure as she is, and she’s well aware of it. “It’s where my performances come from. How am I going to deliver if my energies are scattered, and if I care about what the world is up to?” she asks, helping herself to baigan sabzi at a generous lunch served at the Kapoor dining hall. She chooses to chat with me over a leisurely Monday meal rather than regurgitating answers in a five-star hotel room. It’s new, it’s casual, and certainly refreshing.

Dressed in mustard palazzos, a slinky white shirt and with her poker-straight hair sleeping on one shoulder, Kapoor is a picture of calm. You’d think she would be reeling from all the acclaim that’s coming her way from her latest release Neerja, but at the moment all she’s glad about is having caught up on some sleep. “I haven’t slept in four months,” she says with her trademark giggle, even reprimanding herself for having missed the Budget on television. “Yes, I missed the Oscars too, but I think catching up on the Budget might affect me a bit more than an award show,” she adds.