Why Lucinda Nicholas is entranced by Dubai

On a visit to the Khaleej Times office, Australian model and actress Lucinda Nicholas tells us why she would consider settling down in our vibrant city

To say Lucinda Nicholas is charming would be an understatement. The Australian model, actress and Bigg Boss contestant bowled us over with her intelligence and eloquence on a recent visit to the Khaleej Times office. In Dubai for a 'combination of a holiday and work' the soft-spoken Lucinda was all praise for the city.
"I've been here nine days now and I really like coming to Dubai! I also lived in India for two and a half years so I feel like Dubai is an extension of India but it's also very international and it's got the Middle Eastern culture as well. It's a combination of everything and that's why I'm enjoying my time here.
"This is not my first trip but this is probably the longest that I've been here. It's a combination of a holiday and work - shooting."
She recently posted an Instagram picture of the Dubai skyline at sunrise captioning it "this place is something else" and this caught our attention. She elaborated, "It just astounds me that the city is man-made and everything here has been built up from scratch. And the architecture and the roads, everything is at such a high standard.
Whether it's the food or the multiculturalism here - it's wonderful, I love visiting."
Does she have a favourite place/thing to do in Dubai?
"I actually have to do a bit more of the tourist attractions - I would love to go to the Shaikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi and I would also love to go on a desert safari - these are the things that I'm yet to do, and I can only imagine that they will be amazing. So I think those will be my favourite things!"
She also commented on the weather, which of course we're all loving right now. "It's beautiful. It's nice and warm but it's not too hot - it's just perfect."

Mixing work with travel
Before Dubai, Lucinda was most recently in Los Angeles for work, she's also lived in India for two and a half years during which she featured on Bigg Boss and in music videos, and she has done projects in Europe as well. She revealed that the combined joys of modelling, acting and travel are something she is very grateful for.
"I was just reflecting on my life the other day and I was thinking how lucky I am to be able to travel with work; the reason I love acting or modelling and shooting so much is that I've been to places I would never have imagined going to. I never realised that I would be living in India for two and a half years! Two of the first productions I ever worked on were in Austria and in London, and although I was based in Mumbai I was able to travel to Europe to places I'd never been before and to see things I'd never seen. That is really incredible and I feel really blessed that I have the opportunity to do this."
Growing up in Australia, did she imagine this life of jetsetting and posing for the camera all over the world?
"Absolutely not! Australia is a lucky country they say because we have opportunities to study and choose whichever path we want to choose but travelling the world as a model or actress or shooting - I never envisioned my life doing that. I was actually set on studying law and becoming a lawyer. However I did eventually want to move away with my law degree, like working for the United Nations. So I was always very global in my thinking. My grandfather is from Lebanon and so I have some Arabic blood, and Australia is very multicultural and I think because of that I've always thought I'd love to see the world, experience new cultures and see where my friends have come from!"

'Pageants are a gate opener'
Lucinda's interest in modelling was inspired by a friend who encouraged her to enter a beauty pageant. "I was 17 and had just graduated school and I had a friend who said 'why don't you enter this beauty pageant.' I was like 'me, entering a beauty pageant? I don't think so.' However I said why not and I entered the pageant, I went through the competition (it was a Miss World competition) and I ended up winning for my state when I was 17. From that point, I started shooting; I thought, well, I'm really enjoying this and I could see myself doing this as a career!"
There's no doubt that Bollywood has an affinity for beauty queens and we wondered if, considering her exposure to the industry and her stint on Bigg Boss, she had a role model as far as beauty queens- turned-actresses go.
"The one person I truly looked up to when I was younger was Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, because I remember seeing her in ads and she was global, she was doing Maybelline commercials and she was everywhere. I saw her as a Miss World and thought that she has grace, she has beauty and a successful career in Bollywood. However I feel like I was just brought to India; it wasn't something I pursued, you know, I didn't have Indian relatives. It sort of just happened on its own. It was almost like it was a calling that I was meant to go there. I feel like I am on my own unique journey and it's really hard to say whose career I would want to replicate. But I would definitely say that beauty pageants are a gate opener to acting, doing shooting and pursuing a career in front of the camera."

Bridging cultural changes
Having been brought up in Australia, how did she react  to cultural changes when she first went to India?
"Just the fact that there are 25 million people in Mumbai alone which is the whole population of Australia is already such a big difference between India and Australia. It was really hard at first - I mean it's a developing country so there's the poverty and some things that are a bit more evident as opposed to seeing them back home. But it really is a magical city and it's so interesting and there's so much going on and I really did fall in love with the culture. I do call India home still - I've got so many great friends there. So in terms of adapting I felt like I did adapt to the culture, I started learning Hindi. That's the big one, being able to speak the language I feel like you connect with people automatically once you start learning the language."
She spoke about how unaware she was of Bollywood, prior to going to India. "I didn't grow up with it. However when I was in Sydney I went to an Indian event and I saw Australian born Indian women wearing their saris and dancing and all of a sudden, I had this curiosity in me and said, wow, this is absolutely incredible. When I went  over to India in 2013 I got an opportunity to be in this film clip with Yo Yo Honey Singh and Akshay Kumar - we did a little bit of a fun dance and that was my first exposure being in a music video in India. In 2016 I did a South Indian item song. I was the lead and I had to lip sync and do the choreography as well and that's when I got serious about my training with dancing in India. Lip syncing in Telugu was super challenging because it's completely different from Hindi! But it was so much fun.
"Music videos are really fun because you have the artist who has the song and they're very passionate about it and you have to portray an image or a vision of what they want to demonstrate. It's a one to two day job, and you're just dancing around or you're playing a character. It's not too serious and so to have the opportunity to be in video film clips - I love them, it's super fun."

Dubai could be home
While she still calls India home, she seems to be developing a great love for Dubai. "If you ask me where home is right now, it's really hard to say! I feel like home is wherever I am - if I'm working there, or if I'm meeting friends. That's a really tricky question because I feel like with acting, you're always going to be on the move. You're always going to be travelling so you have to adapt to every location that you go to and connect with people. I'm really liking being here in Dubai, I feel like this might be home for me!
"I would definitely think about settling down in Dubai. It's a great base - not only because of the flight paths, you know you have direct flights to America, Australia, it's very close to India. It's also a melting pot of different nationalities so that's why I feel that it would be a great base and a great place to settle as well."
Lucinda seems eager to travel just about anywhere and explore new opportunities as far as the future is concerned, and we admire her enthusiasm. "I'm going back to Australia for the holidays and then after that it's pretty open at the moment. I'm looking to explore Hollywood. I was just in America and looking to go back in January as well, there are some opportunities over there that I want to explore; it's pilot season so that's the time they cast for all the television shows.
"With India, it's definitely a place that I won't ever be able to say goodbye to. I'm going to continue to learn Hindi, so I think that's the main thing. I'll go about my path, I won't say I'll be moving back to India. However I'll be across Australia, Dubai and Los Angeles and if something comes up in Bollywood then I'm open to that as well."
Lucinda's take on the #MeToo movement
"I think it's absolutely liberating that women are coming out and telling their stories and they are taking a stand for wrong doings that have happened to them. I think it's amazing and it's setting precedents for future cases, and it's also transforming the industry so that women don't have to go through certain things that they don't want to go through. For myself, there are times when you might be uncomfortable or something might not go your way but I think it's amazing that now this movement is giving women voices to stand up for themselves. I think it's pretty level to women all around no matter where they are from or who they're related to, and it seems to be that stories are coming out from everyone. Thankfully I actually haven't experienced anything. People back in Australia who aren't aware of India ask me how it is, they say 'you're such a glamorous girl', and I say I have absolutely no problem. I think women have this strong sense of intuition so if you use that and you're street smart, you're making the right decisions and you follow your gut instinct."
The Bigg Boss experience
"When I set out to do acting I said to myself, I'll never do a reality show! When I was in India the opportunity came up and I thought, this is one of the biggest shows in India, hosted by Salman Khan, and with viewership of millions of people per episode! So it was a huge platform. I was the second ever Australian on the show and I thought to myself, well it's not just about being on reality television, it's about creating history and doing something different. I saw it as an amazing opportunity and it was actually incredibly challenging but I grew so much from that challenge and I took so much away. After Bigg Boss, that's when people on the street or in the airport actually knew how to pronounce my name. Because before I'd have to say 'my name's Lucy'. Lucy is easy for people to understand. I was in the airport and people were like 'Lucinda!' and I was like, oh wow!"
Message for Khaleej Times
"Firstly I'd like to say thank you to Khaleej Times and extend a big thank you to Suhail Galadari for having me here. I want to say that whilst I'm here in Dubai Khaleej Times is my preferred choice of newspaper; I read it every day and I'm enjoying my time here, so thank you."
enid@khaleejtimes.com