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CINEMA:
KARISMA KAPOOR
There's
Something About Karisma
She has
been a serious contender for the top slot since Raja Hindustani in 1996.
Now Zubeida has sealed the 26-year-old's reputation as one of the finest
among the current lot of actors.
By
Anupama Chopra
Friday,
January 19, 2001. Karisma Kapoor is Zubeida, a spirited Muslim girl in
the 1950s whose dreams of becoming an actress are brutally thwarted and
whose search for happiness leads to tragedy.
Film:
Zubeida; Director: Shyam Benegal
Friday,
January 26, 2001. Karisma Kapoor is Pooja, a middle-class urban girl who
romances hero Bobby Deol on the mobile phone and prances in trendy clothes,
mostly in foreign locations.
Film:
Aashiq; Director: Indra Kumar
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| ZUBEIDA,
2000 Hero: Manoj Bajpai Director: Shyam Benegal Karisma's first shot
at arthouse cinema. Easily her best performance. |
Call
her Karisma Chameleon. As she begins her 10th year as Bollywood heroine,
the lady known as Lolo has become all things to all people. While critics
are raving about her finely nuanced performance in Zubeida, trade pundits
are hopeful that Aashiq's out-and-out masala entertainment will have the
box office jingling. After 53 films, a decade of slogging it out in studios
and one National and two Filmfare awards, Karisma is sitting pretty at
the top.
Zubeida is work worthy of applause. Benegal offered Karisma that rare
thing-a textured lead role. And she immersed herself in it, becoming the
tempestuous girl who abandons her child to marry her already married lover.
Karisma's performance is effortless enough to make her heavyweight co-stars
like Manoj Bajpai and Rekha look strained. Zubeida is easily her best
work. It is also a path-breaking career move.
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FIZA,
2000 Hero: Bikram Saluja Director: Khalid Mohamad Her look in the
film is simple and her performance, a powerhouse.
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Karisma
is perhaps the first Bollywood heroine to do arthouse cinema at her peak.
Her ability to unerringly deliver hits makes her a leading contender for
the still vacant position of No. 1. Karisma can, as she says, "do
as many films as I want for ridiculous amounts of money". The grapevine
puts her asking price between Rs 1.5 and Rs 1.75 crore. But what she wants
is satisfaction. "I want to grow," Karisma says emphatically.
"I want to better myself." So she is deftly juggling serious
cinema with masala movies. "I adapt myself to whichever director
I'm working for. That's what makes a complete actress."
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DIL
TO PAGAL HAI, 1997 Hero: Shah Rukh Khan Director: Yash Chopra Picking
up
a role that other heroines chickened out of, Karisma holds her own
against Madhuri Dixit and wins a National Award. |
Naturally
her directors are all praise. Says Benegal: "She's extremely professional
and comes prepared on the sets." Bajpai adds, "Karisma has the
energy of a newcomer." And the energy doesn't dissipate in the more
candy-floss work. Indra Kumar, who was an ardent Madhuri Dixit-fan, says
Karisma is the only heroine after Madhuri whom he is re-engaging-Karisma
stars in his Rishta. "That speaks volumes," Kumar says, "but
Madhuri never did a Fiza or Zubeida in her heydays. Karisma is a step
ahead." Perhaps the ultimate compliment comes from David Dhawan with
whom Karisma has done a record nine films. "I'm planning a film,
which revolves totally around her," he says. "She's hero material
yaar."
It's hard
to imagine Karisma was once a gauche-looking wannabe, famous mostly for
her Sarkailo khatiya and Sexy, sexy songs. Her evolution from Govinda's
arm-candy to Benegal's arthouse muse has been remarkable. Despite her
famed Kapoor genes, Karisma has sweated up every rung. She sometimes did
four shifts a day, working from 7 a.m. to 5 a.m. the next morning. Sometimes
the deliriously tired teenager mouthed the dialogues of the earlier film
at the next shooting.
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| PREM
QUAIDI, 1991 Hero: Harish Director: K. Murli Mohan Rao A gawky Karisma,
an unknown hero and the film still works. |
Her toil
has served her well. At 26, Karisma is in peak form. While her contemporaries,
Manisha Koirala and Raveena Tandon, have been relegated to lesser heights,
Karisma is flying high. Unlike them, she never allowed her personal life
to blur her focus. "I will not make a public display of my life,"
she says. "There's no need. Only your work matters." The press
recently married her off to Abhishek Bachchan but Karisma won't comment.
Like Sridevi
and Madhuri, Karisma has drawn an invisible but rock-solid Lakshman Rekha
around herself. She is polite, even warm, but won't let on what she's
thinking. Level-headed and conservative, she remains diplomatic. "I'm
a very reserved person," she says.
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KHUDDAR,
1994(left)
Hero: Govinda Director: Iqbal Durrani The Sexy sexy song makes headlines
though it doesn't further Karisma's bimbette image. RAJA HINDUSTANI,
1996 (right) Hero: Aamir Khan Director: Dharmesh Darshan Darshan takes
care of the performance and Manish Malhotra, the looks. And a star
is born. |
She is admittedly
a workaholic. "If I have two days off, I don't know what to do."
Director Dharmesh Darshan says, "The passion for cinema is in her
blood." So dinner-time talk at the Kapoor household is mostly about
movies. Karisma and Kareena exchange gossip to the point where mom has
to stop them. In the past few years, Babita has given up her iron control
on Karisma but she still plays the role of friend, philosopher and guide.
"Whatever I am," Karisma says quietly, "is because of my
mother."
Earlier
the grapevine also buzzed about how the Kapoor khandaan had opposed Karisma's
decision to join films. She was only 16 and Kapoor girls didn't become
heroines. It's ironical. Because a decade later, Karisma is going strong,
the fourth generation carrying aloft the torch. Of all the Kapoors working
today, she truly is a long-distance runner.
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