Bollywood actress Urvashi Rautela talks 'Versace Baby' and films in Dubai

The former pageant queen dropped into the Khaleej Times office on Tuesday, September 28, to talk about her budding pan-Indian movie career which includes the Telugu film Black Rose as well as the Hindi remake of Tamil hit Thiratu Payalle 2; she also spoke about a couple of awards she picked up in Mumbai recently for her films and charity work.

Excerpts from the interview:

REACTIONS TO ‘VERSACE BABY’

The feedback to Versace Baby was great because it was a shoot that happened all of a sudden, the collaboration with Mohamed who is a very reputed Arab superstar. I think it’s a great beginning for me in the Middle East. I will be coming up with a lot of other international stuff as well.

Despite the song being majorly in Arabic, Indians connected with it because it’s very groovy. One day when I was in the gym working out, a few female Bollywood actresses came up to me and said, 'Urvashi, we so love your Versace Baby, we kind of always groove to it whenever we are stressed out'. So I think it has that beat and groove which makes you just forget everything once you get into it. The vibes are very good and I am apparently a ‘Versace Baby’; Versace is one of my most loved brands.

I completely loved being a part of it. It was a very lavishly shot video - one of the most expensively shot videos in the world. The director Len Prasad did an amazing job. Mohamed was a great co-star.

ON HER PAN-INDIAN PROJECTS

I have six Bollywood films up for release. Apart from Bollywood I am also working in Tamil and Telugu cinema. It feels great and I take immense pride in representing India as a pan-Indian actor, which I always wanted to be. I wanted to have a fan following not just in Bollywood but South India as well. We Indians are movie buffs; we love watching films and I would love to represent all languages when it comes to films.

WORKING WITH GURU RANDHAWA

Versace Baby was released three weeks after the Guru Randhawa track Doob Gaye. I am just so grateful and I feel so blessed to be collaborating with superstars in their own spaces - one is Guru Randhawa; Indian singer, much loved, girls are crazy about him. He was amazing to work with. We were supposed to collaborate back in 2008 but due to some issues we couldn’t do it.

Then Doob Gaye came. I really love the music by B Praak and Jaani; Remo D’Souza is a really wonderful director to work with. It’s one of my favourite tracks and I listen to it whenever I am in that romantic zone… and I think people really love our chemistry in the video and it was amazing to be part of it.

WINNING NEW AWARDS

It is a great honour to have won awards for Most Influential Bollywood Actress 2021 and Best Humanitarian recently in Mumbai. I think it feels nice to be recognised for the work that you do and I am really passionate about my foundation.

The Urvashi Rautela Foundation did a lot during the pandemic. We donated over 40 oxygen concentrators. During Cyclone Tauktae which affected a major part of Maharashtra, we donated a lot of foodstuff and water bottles and helped in a lot of other ways as well.

Slowly everyone is getting to know about my work. I feel that every single human being - if we have the capacity to help, we all should help.

It’s all about making your life more purposeful; I have a very meaningful life. It’s not just about being an actor but doing something for other people. My parents always taught me to be very helpful. So I am just taking forward that legacy as much as I can.

TAKING ON ‘INSPECTOR AVINASH’

My fans are going to see me in a very different light in this web series. I play a very de-glam character; it is a biopic (about a police officer from Uttar Pradesh) and I play Inspector Avinash Mishra’s (Randeep Hooda) wife Poonam. She is a real life person so I actually had to interact with her, and we chatted a lot about the character. It is very different because it is a very ‘Lucknowi’ character.

It wasn’t about just getting the physicality right but also the way she conducts her daily life.

I got a lot of inputs from Randeep (who is very particular about the films he chooses) and the director Neerraj Pathak - about Poonam’s clothes, the way she talks, how protective she is about her husband.

GOING THE DE-GLAM WAY

In most of my new films I play a de-glam character and audiences will get to see a very different side of my art. I am very excited because I myself get bored watching the same Urvashi every time. Directors and friends have commented on my versatility.

TELUGU DEBUT

It was kind of difficult because I had to memorise all the dialogues for Black Rose. It was a bilingual film so I had to say my dialogues in Hindi and Telugu. What is so interesting about this film is that it has just a single character. So earlier I was like, will people be ready to watch me throughout the film? An actor is kind of scared that when audiences are watching only you all the time, they might get bored. So yes, it was nice working in Black Rose, it was a very different experience. My character is a money-lender, inspired by Shylock from William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.

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