Toronto first-timer Shriya wants to make most of her fest trip

Be it walking the red carpet with the cast and crew of Dilip Mehta's Canadian production Cooking With Stella or meeting celebrities, Shriya Saran, of Sivaji: The Boss fame, wants to make most of her maiden Toronto sojourn.

"It's really exciting to be part of one of only 15 films that have been chosen for a gala presentation in Toronto. This is my first major film festival and I intend to make the most of it," said the Haridwar-born actress, who turned 27 on September 11, the second day of the 34th Toronto International Film Festival.
       
"Yesterday was technically my first full day here. The day before Yesterday, I headed out to Niagara with my mom," she said.

Shot entirely in New Delhi, Cooking With Stella represents a kind of cinema that Shriya has never been associated with before. She plays a small-town girl employed as a nanny by a Canadian diplomat's family.
       
"Deepa Mehta had seen Sivaji...' in Toronto. She felt that I would fit the part of Tannu. I jumped at the offer. I simply love Deepa's films and have seen all her work. I read the screenplay and loved it, but it was only a formality," she said.

According to her, there is much in common between her and Tannu, her onscreen character in Cooking With Stella.

"Her mannerisms are very much like mine. Like the real me, Tannu was born in Haridwar," Shriya said.
       
Yet, she had to go through a pre-shoot workshop to grasp the nuances of the character. "Shooting in Delhi was special. I grew up in this city."

She is now a resident of Mumbai, where she has done films like Mohit Suri's Awaarapan and Apoorva Lakhia's Mission Istanbul.
       
But her fame rests squarely on her work down south and in her short career, she has shared screen space with stalwarts like Rajnikanth, Chiranjeevi, Nagarjuna and Vikram in Tamil and Telugu films.
       
She said language has never been a problem for her. "I started working very early and picked up Tamil and Telugu pretty fast. I can speak Tamil quite well."

Fitting into a global set-up wasn't difficult either. Cooking With Stella isn't Shriya's first international project. Last year, she was in James Dodson's The Other End of the Line, an Ashok Amritraj production that cast her opposite Hollywood actor Jesse Metcalfe.

"Cooking With Stella was a great experience. It was fun interacting with a cast and crew drawn from all over the world," she said.