Bollywood princess

Aishwarya on the pink carpet in London

10 April 2012

Back home in India, Aishwarya Rai stops traffic. Men and women jostle for a glimpse of her beauty, which has greeted them, deity-like, from billboards and magazine covers, TV and cinema screens, for over a decade. For the millions who know her simply as Ash, the 31-year-old former Miss World is more than just the highest-paid actress on the subcontinent. She is the reigning queen of the sprawling Indian film industry known as Bollywood, a mythical place where the living is rich, uptempo and easy, where money talks, everyone bursts into song and dance and love inevitably saves the day.

'Bollywood offers the chance to be transported from toil and worry,' Rai says in her gracefully articulated vowels, 'the chance to feel good about life again.' She has helped humbler compatriots find joie de vivre in more than two dozen Bollywood movies. Her blue-green eyes, tumbling brunette locks and modestly concealed curves have been a siren's call to many a chiselled hero, her classical dance training adding oomph to the genre's vivid choreography, her acting untrained yet remarkably, intelligently natural. 'The true essence of Bollywood will always be a world of hope and colour and positivity,' Rai says, sitting straight-backed in embroidered top, jeans and high-heeled sandals in a Central London hotel. 'An innocent, beautiful, fairy tale,' she sighs, sipping her tea.

Rai has been turning Western heads of late --and not only because her face is currently plastered across the sides of London's buses, advertising the film she is here to talk about, Bride & Prejudice. Her performance in 2002's awardwinning Devdas, the most successful Bollywood movie ever, had critics at the Cannes Film Festival praising her likeness to Audrey Hepburn. 'Aishwarya Rai is the most beautiful woman in the world,' declared Julia Roberts. Last year Rai came out as the new face of cosmetics house L'Oreal Paris and, wearing a series of glamorous frocks, lit up the Croisette as a member of the Cannes jury. But while scripts are now thudding her way from Hollywood, the actress remains choosy. 'I like to break preconceived ideas,' she says. 'My characters have always stood for something, have always had an opinion, although they've never really rebelled.'

Say hello, then, to Lalita, the lead in Bride & Prejudice and Rai's first ever English-speaking part. Strongwilled yet obedient, Lalita is the eldest of four unmarried daughters whose parents, the Bakshis of Amritsar, decide to match them up when a wedding party arrives in town.

Wealthy American hotelier Mr Darcy (Martin Henderson) catches Lalita's eye, but can he convince her he is not an arrogant snob? Will she prove more than a naive lovely? If this all sounds familiar, it should: the film is a modern, musical version of Jane Austen's classic story. Adapted and directed by British-based Asian Gurinder Chadha, the woman behind the box office smash Bend It Like Beckham, Bride & Prejudice opens a window to a world of - well, hope and colour and positivity.

'When I read the script it all fell into place,' says Rai. 'The songs didn't seem forced. The dances cover many Indian styles. The visuals were shot in a way that was familiar to me. At the same time Gurinder is a British film-maker, so there is a knowingness there, but she was very clear that this was a paean to Bollywood, not a parody.' If the actors' lips seem ever-so-slightly out of synch during the numerous song and dance sequences, this is only because no Bollywood star ever actually sings. The pure, high-pitched female vocals that soundtrack the Bollywood genre belong to the 'playback' singers - often superstars in their own right. 'So hopefully people who watch the film will be asking about this, finding out more about our Indian movies.'

Rai is fiercely proud of her culture. Born in steamy Mangalore in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, the only daughter of a marine engineer and kindergarten teacher, her family relocated to Bombay when she was four. Academically inclined, she grew up learning classical Indian dance and wanting to be a doctor or a zoologist. Modelling was always a sideline. When the time came to choose a career she opted for architecture, but was forced to reconsider after being crowned Miss World in 1994. 'When I went back to university there was this celebrity thing happening, and I wasn't a normal student anymore. I was already getting invites to be in the film industry, so I thought I would give it a go.'

A small part in a 1997 Indian arthouse flick, Iruvar, won over audiences and critics, and acting became her focus. Rai emoted her way through a plethora of Bollywood extravaganzas, falling into the arms of such leading men as Salman Kahn, a former boyfriend, and Vivek Oberoi, with whom she is currently linked. Both men have had stand-offs in the Indian press over Rai - rumour has it they have nearly come to blows. 'I don't like talking about my personal life,' Rai shrugs. 'I am here by virtue of my work.'

What of the rumour that she will be the next Bond girl? 'That,' she says, 'should win an award for longevity.' Better, then, to list her forthcoming movies: Chaos, in which she stars opposite Meryl Streep for French director Coline Serreau, Singularity opposite Brendan Fraser for director Roland Joffe, Mistress Of Spices for Gurinder Chadha again. And she's in the opening film for this month's London Film Festival - Raincoat, an intense, noir-ish drama by Bengali director Rituparno Ghosh. Rai's CV is shaping up.

Not that she will ever renounce Bollywood. 'The only reason I am taking up international projects is because I am thankful to God for the opportunities I have got so far. But Bollywood is in my heart.'

She was amazed, she says, at the orderliness of the crowd that gathered when Bride & Prejudice was shooting scenes in Southall, London's 'Little India'. 'A lot of people accumulated after word spread I was there, but it didn't get out of hand like it can in India. People were calm and sweet. But wherever I am, if I want my space I just ask. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.' Rai laughs a tinkling laugh. 'I just express myself,' she says, 'and that's it.'

Bride & Prejudice opens Fri 8 Oct.

MORE ABOUT

Bollywood

Bollywood princess

Read More