Sexy siren to rebel granny: Zeenat Aman on her Bollywood journey
Never one to be tied down by tradition, Aman, 68, talks about former porn star Sunny Leone’s mainstream success, the hypocrisy of Indian cinema and her take on the #MeToo movement during a recent visit to Hong Kong
Zeenat Aman is fashionably late, literally, for her interview. We’re waiting for her at the Island Shangri-La Hotel and an organiser of the “India by the Bay” cultural event that has brought her to Hong Kong explains that she is delayed at the hair salon.
I’m long past my rookie reporting days, when I had no choice but to lower my tolerance threshold for interviewees running late and wasting everyone’s time. But curiosity kills impatience as I’m intrigued to meet the former Bollywood screen siren whose films were playing in every cinema and image adorned every movie poster in India once upon a time.
When she finally turns up, a full hour late, Aman is more embarrassed than apologetic about her tardiness. And the salon session does not appear to have been satisfactory as she spends the first few minutes of our conversation self-consciously flicking back an unruly lock of hair that keeps falling over one eye.
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Once the interview warms up, however, she is at ease, eloquent and forthcoming with a disarmingly soft voice.
She mentions her role in a “major” new web series she has signed up for: “I would like to wait until the producer talks about it, but it’s an interesting role for me because it’s about a grandmother who’s in her 60s, has a baby, and it makes her whole family turn upside down.”
At 68, she relishes the prospect of playing a rebellious granny, pointing out that while she is not one yet in real life, she would be happy to have grandchildren. She does not miss her glamour girl days when it comes to casting options now, she insists.
