Mid-Day
Mumbai, Aug 16: Jiah Khan, who stars in Ram Gopal Varma's Nishabd, is a self-admitted "rebel without a cause". So much so, that when unit members would tease her, she would go after them with a knife!
Footloose
"Please don't think I'm crazy or anything like that," laughs the 18-year old. "It's just that whenever the unit people irritated me after pack up, I would get really mad." And whom did this include? "Everyone, except for Mr Bachchan and Ramu."
As for the reason that got her so mad, she says, "Everybody would tease me saying that I was exactly like my character in Nishabd, i.e. rebellious and doing whatever I want. They would tease me in front of Mr Bachchan, knowing that I couldn't do anything in front of him. So after pack up, I would go to the kitchen, take a knife and go chasing after them. Eventually, they stopped!"
No affair
In Nishabd, Jiah plays a modern day Lolita. "Nishabd is loosely based on Lolita. The sexual implications are a lot more in Lolita than in Nishabd. My film is only about a girl falling in love with an older man," she explains.
There's a lot of speculation that she and her mentor Ramu are having an affair. "I have been Ramu's biggest fan since I saw Rangeela. So it was a dream come true for me when he offered me a role in Nishabd. I look up to him. Having said that, I don't play my character off screen too. Ramu is not my mentor. A mentor is someone you want to emulate. I don't want to be Ramu, but I respect him for what he has given to me."
Patient Bachchan
As for her experience of working with Amitabh Bachchan, she says, "He is such a big star, yet he has so much patience with a newcomer. Initially, there were moments of awkwardness and embarrassment while doing some emotionally intense scenes, but he slips so effortlessly into his character that I soon forgot about Amitabh Bachchan, the megastar. It made things so much easier for me."