Kareena Kapoor is leaning against her vanity van in a Mumbai film studio, her shoulders slumped, her thin figure clad in a flowing red gown. Her boyfriend, actor Saif Ali Khan is standing next to her, animatedly speaking with her. What are they discussing? Perhaps, the pair of sexy boots that he just got her? Or, perhaps, a movie they are considering?
Her porcelain face does not betray what she is thinking. "She has the attitude of a natural born star,” says a photographer who is hanging around to do some pictures. “She looks through you most times unless, of course, she wants to talk to you.” The interview is meant to be about her next few films. But there is very little she actually says about the movies. She is more open about the various questions that surround her life. Like:
Is Kareena too thin?
There are people out there obsessed with Kareena’s size – is she size zero, is she starving herself, is she anorexic? Preeti Wagh, costume designer for television shows, says that most “overweight aunties” on TV desire to look like Kareena. “They aspire to be her.” There are about a dozen sites dedicated to the actress on the World Wide Web, and most of them have fans debating and posting articles about her waist size. There are reports that Saif had a fall-out with a friend who suggested that his actress girlfriend was too thin. So, is she too thin? Director Karan Johar, one of her closest buddies, says he preferred Kareena before she acquired her size zero figure. Kareena thinks she was the thinnest in Yash Chopa’s Tashan (2008), the flick in which she first flaunted her boyish figure in a lime green bikini. “Since then, I have been working on putting on some weight. I am a Punjabi girl, I like my food. Now I am a size 4. I think the weight loss suits me. My features stand out sharper, especially in photographs.”
Is she India’s answer to Victoria Beckham?
Like the ultra-thin Victoria, Kareena is hung up on size zero, on brands and on being known as the ultimate style icon. Look at her old pictures – she almost always wore kurtis with jeans or salwar kameezes, even to the most high profile events. Now it is about Versace gowns, Bulgari watches, YSL perfumes, Hermès Birkin bags and Manish Malhotra sequin saris. “I like Posh Spice’s look and style,” she admits. “I like that lean body and the chiselled face. She has got style and she’s got the attitude.” What she leaves unsaid: that’s the kind of body and face big brands look for in their brand ambassadors. Internationally, model Kate Moss and Beckham, representatives of the size zero movement, have the cream of endorsements and also fashion lines named after them.
As a brand, how much is Kareena worth?
About Rs 20 to 25 crore is the estimate. She charges about Rs 4 to 5 crore per endorsement and has endorsed, till now, nine brands including a telecom company with Saif. “She represents the cool, global Indian woman and an achiever in her own right,” says ad guru Prahlad Kakkar. “Also, Saif and Kareena are the hottest couple around.”
So how much does she actually earn from her films?
Rs 3.5 crore per film! That’s how much she has been paid for a Rumi Jaffrey film opposite John Abraham. The fee hike happened post Vishal Bhardwaj’s Omkara (2006), a film for which she was paid Rs 1 crore. “I charge what I deserve,” she says. “When you sign me, you get glamour and performance.”
Given that she comes from Bollywood’s first family, did she ever have to struggle?
“You think only those poor girls, who come from outside Mumbai to make it big in the industry have to struggle for their existence? I may not have had to stave off lecherous producers, but that doesn’t mean it’s been a bed of roses. Remember all those times when my films flopped and everyone wrote me off? There is this constant pressure to deliver. People love underdogs who make it big, but I hope they understand that it’s not easy for star kids.”
So, is she a good actress?
The jury is still out on that one. Kareena has effortlessly straddled glamour with performance. “She has balanced the dumb Poo baby role of Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham (2001) with the unglamorous ones, like the burkha-wearing Muslim girl in Govind Nihalani’s Dev (2004). But is she a good actor or do directors take her on because they perceive her as someone who is successful and high profile? As much as a Gandhi is born to be a politician, so was Kareena born to be an actor. “I tried to get myself a degree, but movies were my destiny. I could not be anything but a star,” she says. Imtiaz Ali, who directed her in Jab We Met (2007) says that having the right kind of genes helps.
Is Kareena a bad judge of the kind of movies that will work for her?
Think about the number of successful movies she has turned down. She walked out of Rakesh Roshan’s huge hit Kaho Naa…Pyaar Hai (2000), meant to be Hrithik Roshan and her debut vehicle to do J P Dutta’s Refugee. The latter flopped. She signed on Subhash Ghai's Yaadein (2001), Shah Rukh Khan's Asoka (2001) and Yash Chopra's Mujhse Dosti Karoge (2002), all failures at the BO, but refused to do Karan Johar’s Kal Ho Na Ho (2003) because he refused to pay her double her market price back then. “I have followed my heart in my choice of movies,” she says. “But sometimes, I have made blunders at times. Sometimes you misjudge the value of a project.”
Is she more the Indian girl next door than a femme fatale?
Look at some of her best performances. As a naïve Dolly Mishra, madly in love with the local don, Omkara Shukla, who ultimately murders her in a fit of jealousy in Omkara (2006). “My silence had to speak more than my words. Even my breakdowns had to have a ring of silence to them.” As an ebullient Geet, who believes in love and is ready to leave home in her quest for a perfect marriage in Jab We Met. As a traumatised Aaliya in Govind Nihalani’s Dev who is trying to keep her boyfriend away from the neighbourhood fanatics. According to Vishal Bhardwaj, director of Omkara, “Rarely do you come across an actor who gets everything right from the body language to the expression in the eyes. She has an Indian face and looks perfect in a no make-up look.” Now compare these to her exaggerated mannerisms and nausea-inducing performance in a howler called Main Prem Ki Deewani Hoon (2003). “To be among the top ranking positions in Bollywood, you need the glamorous roles,” says Kareena. “It’s about creating the right kind of image. The non-glamorous, performance-oriented roles get me the awards and the critical acclaim.”
Is Kareena the diva she is made out to be?
She is the quintessential ice princess. She looks through people, she can stare you down with her icy glare and she has ten people hanging on to her every word. Kareena says she tends to come across as a cold person. “I have few friends, only people who know me well. I live in my own world. There are so many people who want a piece of you that sometimes, I just tend to blank them out.”
Is she still stuck on Shahid Kapoor?
There are the rumours – about how protective she is of him and about how she keeps a track of his girlfriends. Shahid says he has never brought her up in his interviews; it is she who mentions him like she did recently when she said, “Shahid needs to move on, just as I have.” So what’s her take on her ex-boyfriend? “It was good till it lasted. Now, it makes no sense to talk about him. What’s there to say?”
So, is Saif actually a bad boy? And does she really like bad boys?
Saif’s personal history includes a broken marriage, lots of girlfriends and brushes with the law. Remember the Chinkara hunting controversy that got him and Salman Khan in trouble in Rajasthan, a couple of years ago? He may have wriggled out of that, but photographs prove that he was present on the scene of crime. Then there have been stories about his bar brawls, especially the one in New York two years ago. Kareena giggles and brushes it off, “Who hasn’t had a wild time when they were younger? He has calmed down since he started doing yoga. There is great chemistry between us. We respect each other’s opinions. And there is commitment.”
Who wears the pants in her relationship with Saif?
“Can’t it be a relationship of equals? Saif is mature, he has seen much more than me.”
Is Kareena building bridges with everyone she had fought with in the past?
Six years ago, Kareena wasn’t on the radar of a lot of film-makers. She had burnt too many bridges, including friend and director Karan Johar who gave her one of her career best roles in Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham (2001). “It was as if I couldn’t do anything right,” she says. “My every move was criticised.”
But she is smart. Kareena is setting things right. She is now doing a film with Johar after about eight years. She had called Bipasha Basu kaali billi on the sets of Ajnabee (2001), but made up with her at Saif’s birthday party last year. And she is working with John, an actor she dismissed as ‘wooden’ on Koffee with Karan. “You are younger and you say do the wrong things. They are mistakes and I am strong enough to realise them.”
Why is Kareena keen on reviving the RK banner?
She is planning to tie up with her cousin Ranbir Kapoor to revive the defunct RK banner. “I'm doing a film with them,” she says. “It's my home banner and RK Films were once at the top of the game. Time we brought that golden era back.”
