Nimrat Kaur plays a discontented housewife in The lunchbox. She talks to Iknoor Kaur about the film and her Bollywood wishlist
You may have seen her drooling over chocolates on TV during breaks, but the “chocolate girl” has taken a giant leap now. last she was seen strutting around on the Cannes’ red carpet with the likes of Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Irrfan Khan for her award-winning film The luncbox. Directed by Ritesh Batra, the movie is about a mistaken delivery in Mumbai’s famously efficient lunchbox delivery system, which connects a young housewife to a stranger in the dusk of his life.
“I play a woman called Ila who is an extremely unhappy housewife. She is not an independent woman of today which puts her slightly off the hook considering she is in a town like Mumbai,” said Kaur.
The actor has an army background and started her career in films with Vasan Bala’s Peddlers. She said that she was clueless about what to do when she landed in Mumbai after college, “I always knew I want to build a career in performing arts. So, like anyone else the first thing I did when I got to Mumbai was to have my portfolio made. I did music videos for Tera Mera Pyaar and lot of advertisements. However, six years back, I started theatre and then Peddlers came my way. One thing led to another and I auditioned for The lunchbox and got selected.”
Primarily a theatre actress, Nimrat compared the stage to a sea and films to a swimming pool. She said, “When you are on stage there is huge audience who can’t look at your face on zoom, so your expressions need to be exceptional in order to captivate the crowd. However in a film, it is so much easier to show grief or happiness because you’re the focus of the viewers. They aren’t getting distracted from what you have to say.”
“That doesn’t mean there is nothing difficult or challenging in films, its just a different ball game altogether,” she added.
In her first commercial debut in films, Nimrat will be seen performing opposite Irrfan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui. She said that this was the best opportunity she could have got, “I’m very fortunate that I performed alongside actors with such caliber. However, I wish I had shared screen space with Irrfan too, because we only communicate in the films through letters.” In spite of that Nimrat seemed confident to work with him in the future.
The 31-year-old actress has a long list of directors she would love to work with. Some of them are Anurag Kashyap, Imtiaz Ali, Rajkumar Hirani, Vishal Bhardawaj, Vikram Motwani and Ayan Mukherjee. As of now Nimrat is hoping people will accept her. “I’m not thinking of any other films right now, I just need people to acknowledge me,” she said. The film releases on September 20.