The petite Amrita Rao may now be identified most with her role in Vivaah, where she played quite the traditional prospective bahu. But ask the young actress whether she thinks the portrayal of women in Indian films has evolved, and pat comes the reply, “Certainly.” Says Amrita, “Earlier, the leading ladies would always be adequately covered up and symbolised a decent Indian woman who had all her values intact. Then there were the so-called vamps, who wore bold, revealing clothes and played negative characters. Today’s heroines step into those shoes without playing (one-dimensional) positive or negative characters in their films.”
Despite her understanding of what a leading lady is required to do, Amrita herself has stayed firmly on one side of the fence, we’d say. But maybe a makeover and a change of image with a nicely done grey role is in the offing? If we find out, we’ll be sure to tell you! Incidentally, Amrita was in the news recently for teaming up with her Main Hoon Na director, Farah Khan, to shoot for an ad film.