In one swift move, Poorna Jagannathan broke all the rules of how a conventional heroine should behave. She moved from Hollywood to Bollywood, she started working after marriage and motherhood, and started off with an “off-beat” movie to begin off with, in Delhi Belly. But, she says, about a year after shifting base to India, the journey has only just begun, and there are many more conventions to break.
“I live in Mumbai now and I’m hoping to be part of the vibrant, new kind of cinema emerging from here. There’s a lot of momentum and energy in Bollywood right now. It’s a brave new world here,” she says, informing that she has permanently moved base. “But I do find myself travelling back to New York to do a lot of projects there.”
Juggling two film industries and two cities cannot come easily, especially for a person who also has the additional responsibility of motherhood and family. “It’s hard to be a working mother in any profession. But the way I see it, being a mom forces me to be very picky about the projects I pursue. I will only take time out for stuff that I love,” she points out.
If that sounds like a person who knows exactly where her career is heading, the beginnings, Poorna informs, were anything but. “I was quite ambitionless and unfocussed growing up in the US. I knew I wanted to be an actor but I couldn’t figure out how to become one. I then came down to Mumbai for a semester and interned with Alyque Padamsee’s theatre group. I went back, studied journalism (with a focus in advertising) and had a seemingly unending 10-year career with an ad agency,” she recalls.
Then, finally, showbiz happened. A successful film and television career in the US followed, before Aamir Khan’s scouts picked her up for Delhi Belly. It’s been almost a year since, so what comes next? “I start a couple of projects this year. But I’ll be able to speak on them when I start shooting them,” she says, adding that she welcomes any film offer with a good script. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a conventional role or not. If the script is good, I’m always game.”
Her dream assignment, she says, is to do a film with Anurag Kashyap and Kalki Koechlin. For a person who “stumbled upon” things initially, she sure has learnt to plan well. Welcome to Bollywood.