MARK NAGLAZAS,
The West Australian
November 22, 2011, 12:47pm
The catwalk has been a launching pad for many stellar careers in the movies, including Andie MacDowell, Cameron Diaz, Charlize Theron, Halle Berry and Elizabeth Hurley (perhaps we'll leave the star of Bedazzled and My Favourite Martian off the list).
However, it's doubtful than any of these regal women, even Oscar winner Theron, has had such an auspicious start in movies as Indian star Freida Pinto, below.
Pinto's first film was Danny Boyle's art-house blockbuster Slumdog Millionaire, which won eight Academy Awards in 2008 (including best picture) and earned her a Screen Actors Guild award for being part of the ensemble cast.
Her next film was a smallish but significant part in Woody Allen's You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, followed by work with two more leading auteurs, Julian Schnabel (Miral), and Michael Winterbottom (Trishna).
And if it's not enough to be an art-movie "It" girl, Pinto is now a target for Hollywood, playing James Franco's love interest in the critically and commercially acclaimed blockbuster Rise of the Planet of the Apes and, released this week, the 300-style CGI ancient-world fantasy Immortals.
"When you line them all up like that, it does look like an amazing run," says the 27-year-old Mumbai-born English literature graduate — the beautifully spoken Pinto sounds like she's read her Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy.
The early success with Slumdog, together with being routinely ranked high on the world's most beautiful people lists is the reason why Pinto has the pick of roles, from Oscar bait to Hollywood blockbuster fantasies. And diversity is exactly what she craves.
"I don't want to be stereotyped as one kind of actress," Pinto says. "That's the beauty of this profession. Every job lands me in a new world and I want to make the most of that by making as many different movies as possible."
Pinto's taste for cinematic adventures is more than satisfied by Immortals, a hyper-stylised comic-book version of the story of the heavenly reject Theseus (played by Superman-in-waiting Henry Cavill) and his struggle to again sit among the gods. Pinto plays the virgin oracle princess, Phaedra.
"I come from a country with a very strong living mythology. Every Sunday we would read stories from the Mahabharata. So even though Immortals is from another tradition — both Greek and Hollywood — it reminds me of the stories I heard in my childhood."
While Pinto is a fast-rising star in international cinema she is little known in her homeland, where she is outranked by a "bazillion" equally gorgeous Bollywood stars.
"In India I can maintain an extremely low profile because of the career path I have chosen or has been chosen for me. It's nice. I can have my normal days and I can have my days full of frenzy."
Can she see herself doing a full-blown Bollywood movie and become an all-singing, all-dancing star? "No, because that would take a lot of courage. But I never say never. You never know when you will be asked to do what you fear the most."
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