Barfi! changed everything: Ileana

“I was like the Akshay Kumar of the south,” Ileana D’Cruz states, as she settles down for an interview. She makes the comparison because she had a very busy career down South before she made her Bollywood debut with Barfi! in 2012.
Six years, and eight films later, Ileana is happy with the kind of films she’s doing in Mumbai. These films, she says, have helped her become a smart, sensitive and mature person.

In the South, she says she used to do four films in a year. “I was doing so much work, it was amazing. I really miss that. I did so many films because there were so many offers. But I was not really thinking it through. I wasn’t this choosy. I was just young and wanted to do a lot of work. I wanted to do everything coming my way.
“Like, when I did Kick, I had so much fun making it. It was over-the-top and dramatic, there were a lot of fun songs, we got to travel so much. I miss the busy life.
“After coming to Bollywood, it has become slower. Here, we sit on the pre and post discussions – the whole process of doing one film is so long! For example, while doing Barfi!, I finished two films down South.
“I don’t think I will ever understand Bollywood. And I’m happy about that because it is a big, crazy, world. It’s too complicated and chaotic to understand.

“Every film teaches you something, she says. “I had done so many films in the south before I did Barfi!, but I feel Barfi! wiped that slate clean. For the first time, I felt like an actor because everything that I did after that was something I had never done before.
“When I first watched Barfi!, I started crying. I felt I was not acting in the film… there is no acting or dialogue…I was so used to showing emotions that being so subtle for a change was different.
“I was not sure whether it was considered acting at all. It was a different form of acting for me. It taught me about relationships. I hardly remember the conversations I had with Dada (Anurag Basu, director), as I had so many. I was watching the making of the film video and he was saying that he had to sit with me, and explain about divorce, relationships and marriage and how it works.”