STYLISH STILETTOS CLICKING, oversized sunglasses and polka-dotted neck scarf impeccably complementing her chic white dress (all very Audrey Hepburn), and an entourage comprising two bodyguards, hair and make-up artists and a few girlfriends in tow, Sonam Kapoor breezed into the Khaleej Times office Tuesday afternoon only a few minutes late, effectively voiding our friendly wager on how long this ‘Bollywood brat’ was going to keep us waiting.
After a quick leaf-through yesterday’s edition of City Times and expressing girly delight at spotting features on friends Amrita Puri of Aisha fame, good-looking newcomer Rana Daggubati (who she tags as someone she’s “close” to) and favourite co-star “AB” (Abhishek Bachchan), the actress slips into ‘interview mode’.

So Sonam, we kick off, why take on Anees Bazmee’s Thank You. It simply doesn’t check all the right boxes – there are too many actresses to share the limelight with, an ensemble cast that equals limited screen time and she’s obviously too young and too new to play a wife.

“I wanted to reach an audience which I haven’t been able to reach with my very snobby films. And I wanted to work with Akshay Kumar! Like any other actress would. And it was fantastic. He is just so dedicated - if we had to be ready at 6am, I’d wake-up maybe 45 minutes before, which is what it takes me to get ready. But he’d be up at 4:30am, work out and then be on the set at quarter to six. He rehearses like a mad man,” noted Kapoor on the industry’s resident ‘khiladi’.

“He’s got great energy – you know, he can completely lift me up and swing me around. I’m not a small girl, but when you’re around him, he really makes you feel like a girl and that’s nice. He’s a complete alpha male.”

Besides, she continues, director Bazmee - who has previously helmed No Entry, Singh is Kinng and Welcome - is a good friend of her father Anil Kapoor, and she’s a fan of his colloquial style of writing (which, according to her, saves actors the trouble of learning lines that don’t feel very natural to recite) and women-empowering scripts.

“If you see any of Anees sir’s films the women are not shown in a demeaning light. He views them as a very strong part of society. If you meet his daughters they’re like the apples of his eyes – they follow him around everywhere. You know, a lot of men in our industry don’t look at women like that. That’s what the movie is about - all men our dogs.”

CONTROVERSY FREE?

Currently, Kapoor is also working on Pankaj Kapur’s directorial debut Mausam alongside his son Shahid Kapur – and for those of you who haven’t quite picked this up from the grapevine already, the actress’ remarks about her co-star’s height (or lack thereof) have not gone down too well with him and are said to have sparked a conflict between the two.

“That’s not true at all. We get along pretty well. In fact, I get along with all my co-stars. Shahid is young, fun and an extremely good dancer. He’s sort of producing the film as well so he’s always there – sort of like the boss of the sets – and we have no issues. I also like working with his dad, who let’s me do whatever the hell I want, which is always nice because that’s what you want from your director.”

Fair enough. And what of the other controversies she’s been a part of? A supposed rivalry with Deepika Padukone and unflattering comments regarding Ranbir Kapoor on talk show Koffee with Karan – where she dismissed him as “unable to stay loyal” and “not sexy” – to name a few.

“I’m very straightforward and I say it like it is. I don’t beat around the bush. I don’t think I’ve been very controversial. But I also don’t read everything that’s written about me, there’s no point. The only time I do is when my publicist sends me stressed out messages reading ‘what is this?’ There’s a lot of rubbish that’s being written. There are so many magazines, newspapers and TV channels out there that they need to fill space. So these days, people have started writing fiction.”

However, since she has three very close friends working in the media, and some of her father’s good friends are also seasoned journalists, she sees no reason to be critical of what she terms a co-dependant relationship with the media.

“I’ve never spoken about my personal life and I don’t intend to. It’s separate from my workspace. That’s what always helped. I have never talked about who I’m seeing or who I’m not because that’s the only thing that’s controversial these days, relationships. Most of the time I don’t deny or clarify anything.”