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apsbicepstraining · 6 years

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Bollywood rebel Kajol: aEUR~ IA never held a damn what anyone to say something about me. IA stillA donaEUR( tm) taEUR( tm)

The Indian film star has been criticized by her unconventional appears, her unexpected busines alternatives and for demanding better roles. She discusses her 22 -year on-screen woo with Shah Rukh Khan and why she refuses to give advice to young actors

Kajols isnt a quiet presence. She talks rapidly, titters loudly, and is uncharacteristically goofy for Bollywood royalty, shedding her mitts about so much better in a meagre London hotel suite that her jewellery wings across the room. The actor, 41, embarked her occupation 23 years ago and views the record for winning better actress( six experiences, tied with her late aunt Nutan) at the Indian Filmfare awards. She has long been considered one of the countrys most unconventional stellars for allegedly not conforming to the industrys narrow allure ideals, for twice taking long break-dances at the top of her job, and for castigating heads for not shedding her in parts written for male leads. She is back to acting, after a five-year hiatus( looking after my boys, being a wife, baby, human ), with Dilwale. The movie commemorates a much-hyped reunion with Shah Rukh Khan the couple have represented their most successful cinemas together over the past two decades and are consistently voted Indian cinemas excellent on-screen pair. Their biggest strike, 1995 s Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge( DDLJ ), has gone on to be the longest-screened movie in Indian cinema record, still showing in Mumbai theatres today.

Whats it like to be back after such a long shatter? Well, I do stop having breaks as everyone knows. Im quite the violate being. But very great enjoyable. Weve been filming in a marathon, six months non stop, and after that long with a gang you want to touch one another and never investigate those people again. But its worth it. I dont get that same enjoyment doing anything else.

Did you ever worry that taking those flouts and walking away from your huge success as a bankable female lead-in was a career play? Im picky; Ive done very little toil compared to my peers. But I cant work on three cinemas a year. Ive never appeared cozy doing that. Not at the beginning of my career and definitely not after I got married.[ Kajol is married to actor Ajay Devgan. They have a 12 -year-old daughter and a five-year-old son .] I necessary that time out, to look at my boys, go to sleep with them and wake up with them, have breakfast with them. I desire my girls, but I like them , extremely I involve their fellowship to retain me grounded and in every which way.

Kajol with Shah Rukh Khan in their biggest ten-strike, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. Image: British Film Institute/ PR

Your daughter is almost a girl now. What have you learned from her and what does she learn from you? There is huge pres for her, as she puts it, with what education of girls are doing and is able to do at that age but they have a natural bia to lie also. Ive realised that. Their mothers are letting them do all this, and youre not letting me do this yeah, thats a good one. Regrettably for her, Im in touch with those the women and I know their daughters are attracting the same ruse. But somewhere down the line, you have to give them some leeway. They are in a different world I cannot compare what my childhood was like with hers. We were road dumber at their age. We thought we were very smart, but we were very stupid. Fortunately for me, my daughter has always been a strong individual, with very strong likes and disfavours, and she used vocal about them.

The press often say the same of you. [ Laughs ] I know. Damn. And I have to live with myself!

Bollywood has changed dramatically since you first started, dont you think? It has become big. Even small things like vanity vans[ trailers ], we didnt have that 15 years ago. The machinery has taken on a whole new grade. Unexpectedly you have people with specialisms, suddenly everyones more professional and its capable of being make different kinds of cinemas. There is an array of scripts that arent just ideas in people chiefs any more. And its not just about the youngest and best available. Thank God that stage is over.

Do you miss not filling that territory anymore? No, you grow up. After a place, you get sick of running around the trees. Theres simply so much better thoughtlessness you can manage in your busines you have to be at that theatre and in that frame of mind to do it. I often get: Oh my God, why didnt you take that percentage? The character was so good, but if I cant appear a persona, if I cant visualise that, then Im not the right party for it. Its difficult to explain to someone when Im saying no to their script.

For a long time, the industry and its press named you an unconventional leading lady for having a duskier hue, for not plucking your eyebrows, for having shabby whisker, for not being size zero. Did it ever bother you? [ Laughs ] I never generated a damn about what anyone said about me. I still dont. Size zero is in, but I dont understand it. I might be into the fitness activity now, but I never paid attention to it back then. The commentators pounce on me a little less now than they would anyone else, Ive deserved that. Plus, I cant afford to give in to that pres. It would drive me absurd and I would need to be lock the door. Im already mad and possibly require fastening up anyway!

Kajol in 1995 s Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. Image: PR

Your biggest reaches Baazigar , DDLJ, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai , Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham , My Name is Khan have checked you partnered up with Shah Rukh Khan . Audiences cant get enough of you together. Why? Weve known each other for 22 years, we build films together every few years its simple-minded. His power hasnt changed. Its even more evident, hes very passionate about it. He has clear ideas of how things should be, but you get better at foreseeing another persons moves and thoughts. I can nearly predict how a scene with him is going to go and he can do the same for me. We automatically know that about one another. He has learnt me a lot in life.

Hollywoods female actors have consistently campaigned for there has become still more roles for women over 40 , and more diversity on screen . How does Bollywoods record compare? Thank God for the gatherings: the opinions and flavors have changed and it has allowed the industry to move in a new direction. Movies will ever reflect what the audience wants and, as long as they want to see all kinds of movies, all kinds of films will be made. I have no complaints.

Do you get asked for advice by younger female actors? Even if I do, I never dedicate it. Advice is a little too free and easy around the world everyone has to develop their own route. What I did when I was 18 years old is so different to what someone now might do.

Do you contemplate yourself a feminist? I do debate myself a feminist, but I am contrary so I can also be considered the opposite. I believe in the equality of men and women, but I dont object to courtesy. I believe in it; equal opportunities should not aim girls should be ashamed to be feminine. I dont believe men are made to rule “the worlds” in the same method I dont believe dames should be doormats. But the stigma of not wanting to do happens like a boy or being made to feel stupid in traditional gender characters is dumb.

Dilwale is released after cinemas worldwide on 18 December

The post Bollywood rebel Kajol: aEUR~ IA never held a damn what anyone to say something about me. IA stillA donaEUR( tm) taEUR( tm) appeared first on apsbicepstraining.com.

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viralhottopics · 7 years

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Viola Davis: Im pretty fabulous

Her extraordinary performance in the upcoming Fences has seen Viola Davis tipped for an Oscar. But her success has taken a huge amount of self-belief. She tells Alex Clark why it is only through demanding respect that you get the parts you are due

Its the run-up to Christmas and everybody in Los Angeles, which to a Brit feels unseasonably sun-drenched, is bemoaning the chilly weather; as we settle down in the Beverly Hills hotel, Viola Davis draws a warm jacket around her shoulders. Not that shes complaining: throughout our conversation, she is determinedly upbeat, celebratory, optimistic. She radiates a sense of excitement and satisfaction that, at 51, all the hard work is really beginning to pay off.

Five years ago, when Davis was playing the role of the maid Aibileen in The Help, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award, she told me that, as a dark-skinned actress in Hollywood, she had done what it was at my hand to do, even if that didnt give her as much scope for her talents and energies as she would have liked. Ive had to sink my teeth into a role that was probably a fried-chicken dinner and make it into a filet mignon.

Now, with film roles coming out of her ears, the lead in the TV drama How To Get Away with Murder and her own production company, she is opposite Denzel Washington in the film adaptation of August Wilsons Pulitzer prize-winning play Fences. (After our meeting, she begins 2017 by winning a Golden Globe for her performance, saying in her acceptance speech that the film Doesnt scream moneymaker, but it does scream art and it does scream heart.) Surely the role of Rose Maxson is a filet mignon.

She bursts out laughing. This is absolutely a filet mignon a medium-well filet mignon. And Davis clearly relishes every bite: her performance as a wife and mother in 1950s Pittsburgh, struggling at every turn to hold her family together, to absorb the rage and disappointment of her husband Troy and to protect her sons innocence and ambition, is electrifying so involving that it invokes an almost physical response. We watch as Rose is beguiled and charmed by the charismatic, storytelling Troy, unable to chide him for his excesses without dissolving into mirth, and as she seeks to intercede on others behalves to limit the damage his temper and pride cause. It takes almost the whole film, however, for Rose to voice her own feelings and desires.

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That was the role of womanhood in the 50s, says Davis. You were an instrument for everyone elses joy except for your own. The 50s in America had the highest rate of alcoholism and depression. There were whole manuals out there that were being passed out about how to make your husband happy put on make-up when he walks through the door, after a long day of work, dont weigh him down with any of your problems, ask him about his problems, greet him with a smile, make sure the children are fed and theyre clean, his favourite meal is on the table, and nowhere in that manual is anything about her joy, and the centre of her happiness.

She has been here before, and with Washington; they are reprising the roles they played in the 2010 Broadway revival of the play, for which they both won Tony awards; and they are rejoined by Russell Hornsby and Mykelti Williamson as Troys son and brother respectively. Part of Wilsons 10-play Century Cycle, in which the playwright chronicled the experiences of African Americans decade by decade, Fences transition on to the big screen has taken so long because its author, who died in 2005, insisted that its director be black a simple demand revealingly hard to accomplish in Hollywood.

Now, Washington himself directs, and his key artistic choice is apparent the moment the film begins: he has preserved the works theatrical origins, with nearly all the action taking place in a confined domestic space, and dialogue ranging from quick-fire ensemble scenes to extended soliloquies. The effect is disconcerting we rarely see such unfiltered staginess on film but always riveting; there is not an inch of slack, a word wasted.

Davis herself has two show-stopping speeches, in which she first rails at life and at last attempts to make her peace with it. What was different about playing Rose this time around? She replies that she had been sitting with this narrative for so long and never quite got the ending until I did the movie. And I keep saying to myself that the reason I didnt get the end is because she is at a place that probably most of us as human beings never get to, and that is a place of forgiveness and grace. I think that most of us spend a lifetime holding on to the past, even when we feel like were letting go a bit.

Maid in Hollywood: a scene from The Help with Viola Davis as Aibileen Clark, and Bryce Dallas Howard and Ahna O Reilly. Photograph: Dale Robinette/DreamWorks

She holds close to the advice of psychiatrist Irvin D Yalom that one must give up all hope of a better past. Davis herself grew up in extreme poverty; she has spoken powerfully about the series of makeshift dwellings she, her parents and five siblings occupied in Rhode Island, about hunger and lack of sanitation, about her fathers violent abuse of her mother. The letting go seems to take two distinct but related forms: allowing herself to feel good about what she has achieved, and building platforms that will help broaden the possibilities for a new generation of actors, writers and directors of colour.

She cites her delight at seeing Shonda Rhimes, the producer behind Greys Anatomy, Scandal and How To Get Away with Murder, accepting a Norman Lear achievement award in Television last year. She said: I happily accept this award because I deserve it. I LOVE IT. Absolutely love it. Its the waking up and understanding that OK, you may not be the best person out there, but youve put in enough work to understand that you deserve what youve got, that that is what is at the end of hard work. The happily ever after comes after youve done the work. And to literally understand, especially as a woman, that a closed mouth doesnt get fed, youve got to ask for what you want and expect to get it.

I remark that its noticeable how often women play down their successes; how they will even deflect minor compliments on appearance. Why does she think that happens? I think tapping into ones power and ones potential is a very frightening thing, she replies. And for women its a very new thing. It is. I always used to feel that self-deprecation was an answer to humility that people would see me as a humble person the more I put myself down. And people do say that: Oh! I ran into so-and-so and they kept saying, Oh, my work in this really sucked, and they were great! I just thought it was so refreshing that they said that! And I often think to myself, what if someone says, You know what, Im confident, Im really happy about the work I did. I really felt like I gave it my best and it came out great, the same way men do. Why is that not seen as humble?

Motherhood has given me a different telescope to look at life: with husband Julius Tennon. Photograph: Tibrina Hobson/Getty Images

Her increasing ability to feel comfortable with her achievements is linked to an awareness of her emerging position as a figure of influence. The more Im pushed in a position of leadership and I know I have to be the mouthpiece for so many other people who cant speak for themselves, the more confidence Im gaining. And that extends to the way she views her own past and the more she shares her story. She explains: I can hear myself say, Oh yeah, I took the bus five hours just to get to the theatre, then took it five hours back, and Im listening to that, Im being an objective observer, and thinking to myself I did that? Its like looking at an old picture of yourself when you felt like you looked bad, and you go, Wow, I was fabulous! Thats how I feel about my life now that Im looking back at it, and Im like, Im pretty fabulous. I really am. Im pretty fabulous.

Back in 2011, when we talked about Daviss commitment largely via JuVee, the production company she founded with her husband, Julius Tennon to addressing the limited opportunities afforded people of colour by the entertainment industry, she expressed her hope we wouldnt be having the same conversation in five years time. Naturally, because challenging entrenched privilege takes time, we are, but it has shifted ground. Davis herself is scheduled to play the part of Harriet Tubman, who liberated slaves in the Civil War era, and to star in Steve McQueens Widows, a revisiting of Lynda LaPlantes TV series co-scripted by Gone Girls Gillian Flynn. Its not even a role that would be necessarily written for an African American, but not according to him. Hes like: Why not?

Davis brings up The Help, and says that although she loved making the film, she understands the criticisms levelled at it that women of colour were once again placed in the role of maids, and not portrayed as tapping into their anger as much as they could have. Tapping into all the things they could have been other than the maid. Partly, she thinks, that relates to the image of the black maid as a nurturer, a second mother, so that even within the movie, there are certain things that are not going to be explored, if it somehow messes up the memory of what the audience had, that perfect mother. She couldnt be angry. She couldnt be sexualised. Shes gotta stay that image that brings us comfort and joy knowing that we were loved and nothing more than that.

Davis loves the riposte to that one-dimensional figure provided by the character of Annalise Keating, the firecracker law professor, ambitious, potent and flawed, that she plays in How To Get Away with Murder. Its blowing the lid off everything that people say we should be, especially as a dark-skinned woman, that you cant be sexual, you cant be unlikable, you can be angry but with no vulnerability, you cant be damaged, you cant be smart. It blows the lid off all of it. And even if its not executed all the time in ways that people like, it doesnt matter. What matters is that shes out there. Thats it. Shes out there, shes on screen, shes making an impact.

In the 1950s women were an instrument for everyone elses joy except their own: Viola Davis with Denzel Washington in a scene from Fences. Photograph: David Lee/AP

Another fundamental has changed in the past five years; in 2011, she and Tennon adopted a baby, Genesis, who is even as we speak frolicking in a nearby hotel room. When Davis and I are done, her babysitters release the six-year-old to bound along the corridor and leap into her mothers arms, asking whether she can go and buy a swimming costume in the hotel boutique and head for the pool. Her mother observes that in such a luxurious joint, its a purchase that could easily come to a couple of hundred dollars, but concedes that theyll work something out (you imagine somebody might be despatched to Gap).

Davis combines motherhood which she says has changed her utterly, and given her a different telescope through which to see life with work by clever stratagems and good planning; often taking Genesis with her, only making one film a year, having a TV shooting schedule that allows her days off and free weekends. She claims to live by two mantras Im tired, and Im doing the best I can but she doesnt look remotely weary. And things might be about to get a whole lot busier. She was the first African American to win the outstanding lead actress in a drama series Emmy award for her role as Annalise Keating; alongside numerous other awards, she has hitherto been nominated for two Oscars for The Help and Doubt. But now her role as Rose Maxson is being spoken about as a cert for nomination and a very strong contender to win her an Academy Award come February. Has she allowed herself to think about it? She pauses, laughs, parries.

You know what I know about that? Because I dont know if thats going to happen or not. But what I will say about this is, and this is how I keep my perspective, whatever happens, Ive gotta go back to work. The carpets are going to be rolled up, the people are going to stop calling like that, and Ive gotta go back to work. And you cant bring that Oscar on a set, and that Oscar cant do the work for you. You gotta do it. Thats what Ill say.

Fences is released on 10 February