The incredibly talented Shabana Azmi has always led a dichotomous screen life: the stark, grassroot-level raw reality of Ankur and Paar, and the chic glamorous world of Manmohan Desai and now Karan Johar.
“I’ve played so many roles where I had to be wrapped up in a fading cotton saree and placed in the back of the beyond that playing an ultra-glamorous role in Karan Johar’s Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani was a liberating experience. I’ve never felt more beautiful on screen,” says Shabana who is currently in London with her husband Javed Akhtar lecturing at the London School Of Economics and The British Library, reading excerpts of poems by Kaifi Azmi and Jan Nisar Akhtar etc.
“I’ve played so many roles where I had to be wrapped up in a fading cotton saree and placed in the back of the beyond that playing an ultra-glamorous role in Karan Johar’s Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani was a liberating experience. I’ve never felt more beautiful on screen,” says Shabana who is currently in London with her husband Javed Akhtar lecturing at the London School Of Economics and The British Library, reading excerpts of poems by Kaifi Azmi and Jan Nisar Akhtar etc.
Shabana laughs, “It is virtually a different world from the world shown in Karan’s film. I remember in 2022 while shooting in Delhi for Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani I had to attend a wedding one evening. After the day’s shooting. I just took off wearing the saree and jewellery that I was shooting in. Manish was horrified, ‘How can you got to a wedding in shooting clothes and jewellery? At least let me give you real jewelry.’ But I told him to relax, it will be fine. And it was! I looked quite presentable at the wedding, if I my say so myself.”
