'I'm a hang arounder'

Did she always know she'd end up in front of the lens?

"I had no such intentions. I'd seen Sir's films and I wanted to work with him. He agreed to take me on and the first thing he said when he saw me was that I should become an actor. He said my bone structure was perfect and that he could shoot me from any angle.

"I told him I couldn't act but he convinced me that I could and I went into extensive training over the next year and a half."

Were family and friends surprised?

"Dad said he always knew there was a performer in me because I love dancing. But otherwise, it was serendipity. I'm a very impromptu person; I don't plan my life at all."

So she hasn't set goals for herself then?

"Well, I have a long term goal. I want to be a good actor and do roles that I can sink my teeth into — whether they're commercial phataka roles or complicated characters. But I don't want to plan my whole life around that or chart my career painstakingly," she says rather equanimously.

Her present plans include completing her Bachelor's Degree in Economics, which she is pursuing via correspondence.

"After schooling in Arya Vidya Mandir in Juhu, it was while studying Theatre Arts at the United World College in Singapore that I realised I wanted to focus on Filmmaking. Though I wasn't sure what aspect of it I'd work on," she admits.

Preparation for her role also involved shedding around 30 kilos. So does she advocate such crash diets?

"Being young, I could have lost all that weight by going on an extreme diet but I didn't. I ate healthy and exercised a lot. It took me more than a year but I'm glad I did it the right way," she retorts.

"As an actor, your face and body are the tools of the trade. It's not about looking beautiful as much as it is about being in the best physical shape you can," she says with a practical stance.

Sonam admits that the brouhaha about losing weight is a tad annoying. "I'm pretty athletic; I've never been fat. My dad calls me a giraffe! It was the two years at boarding school when I put on weight and I would have wanted to lose it for my own sake in any case."

How was the journey from being an Assistant Director to the lead actress on the sets?

"No different. I had war paint on and was wearing all these heavy costumes but I'd hang around on the sets rather than my make-up van. I'm a hang arounder!"

Is she afraid that she might not have it as good in the future?

"I can adapt fairly well to any situation. I don't need constant attention or diva-like pampering and I owe that to my years at boarding school."

"Be yourself, you have nothing to lose," she opines philosophically.

How does it feel then, to be compared to other actors?

"Waheeda Rehman, Rekha and Juhi Chawla? — I can't be complaining," she exclaims.

What about losing claim to her private space?

"I signed up for it, I have to take it in my stride. My father was already a 'star' when I was born. I've been used to people looking at us wherever we went. This is my idea of normal; it doesn't feel strange. Anything else would have been abnormal."

Flashback, Fiction

Sonam recounts her childhood with much fondness. She misses her younger sister Rhea who's studying at the New York University.

"If dad was shooting abroad, we'd join him during school vacations and if he was home — that would be a vacation in itself. Rhea and I would go for swims or lounge around the beach and have bhutta."

She admits that the two sisters are poles apart. "She's city chic and I'm rather boho," she elaborates.

Sonam professes a particular interest in fairy tales. According to her, they lend positivity to the human psyche.

So was Saawariya, based on Fyodor Dostoevsky's short story - White Nights, a perfect debut vehicle considering its setting?

"Yes, it is rather close to my heart. Cinema doesn't film life, it's something between art and life, isn't it?"

Dance, Drama

For those who've seen Sonam lilting through the frames, it won't come as a surprise that she's been training in kathak for the past fourteen years under the tutelage of Pandita Uma Dogra.

Did it help to have a good off-screen relationship with her co-actor? "Definitely, because it was a first for both of us. Ranbir (Kapoor) and me understood what the other was going through and that helped. But otherwise, it shouldn't matter. You're playing a character in any case so your personal equations have no bearing on that."

Does she agree that she had it easy by virtue of being born into a film family? "The successful actors of today are a fair mix of both. Shah Rukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Aishwarya Rai are pertinent examples — they've made it big without any sort of film lineage. The starting point may be different, but from thereon it's the same journey."