‘I don’t work for the box office’

Tannishtha Chatterjee, known for her work in Brick Lane (an adaptation of Monica Ali’s award-winning book), is very excited her next —Road, Movie being made by the English August and Split Wide Open maker Dev Benegal that releases later this year.

“It is a fun movie that shows a journey. It is like travelling cinema about three people. It is a humourous film and I have always liked Dev’s work since the time I first came to Mumbai and began my understanding of cinema,” she says. Road, Movie also has Abhay Deol in the lead.

The versatile actor has never really done a commercial movie in her career. She has been in the profession for eight years now and has set up bases in London and New York alongside Mumbai. However, Tannishtha says though she enjoys watching masala movies she didn’t choose to become an actor because she wants box office glory. “I don’t work for the box office. Box office glory is dependent on a lot of factors and I, as an actor, only want to work in films that excite me. I have been commercially successful with Brick Lane. I have travelled the world because of the films I have chosen to do. I like being experimental and diverse in my choice of subjects and roles,” she tells DNA.

Tannishtha adds, “I’m a very experimental person and I have been doing many different things. I have been singing in my movies too. It’s not that I don’t like commercial cinema. I love them. I love Shah Rukh Khan and I had a great time  seeing Om Shanti Om. It was pure entertainment. As an actor I can’t be on the sets with people whose sensibilities aren’t the same as mine for cinema. I like to identify with the vision of a movie.”