You can’t be scared: Katrina Kaif

The role that made audiences sit up and say Katrina Kaif can deliver a nuanced performance came in a film that dealt with the most globally recognised image of terror — the 9/11 attacks on US soil. In New York, playing the wife of a terrorist, a wife forced to discover his real identity after an idyllic sunny marriage, could not have been easy, but Katrina downplays the effort. “I followed the director. Kabir (Khan) has made a documentary on this subject and has a lot of knowledge about it.”

She is addressing the After Hrs team, with us as Guest Editor for Anti-Terrorism Day today. An unlikely choice some might say, considering Katrina has not really portrayed brawny characters combating The Enemy, nor is it that she has such absolute command over Hindi that she can verbally demolish The Bad Guy onscreen.

But that may be why she is exactly right.  “I was born in Hong Kong, we went to Japan, Switzerland, Poland, London and then India. I am very much a citizen of the world,” she tells us. An upbringing that encompassed the globe. Terror knows no boundaries either.

And then, having played an ordinary citizen — a wife, a mother — who discovers her world torn apart by terror and its consequences, sensitised to its destructive power. Incomparable, though, the reel world to the reality of those made victims in the aftermath of terror attacks.

“I don’t think that anyone can say that they were not shocked and terrified when 26/11 happened,” Katrina continues. “It was beyond bizarre. It is very unnerving to know that there is an open war going on. I was appalled, for people who died and lost their lives and family. The same thing happened in America — everyone was shocked to learn that something of this sort has happened in America.”

So was she scared for herself? “No, I am not scared of too many things,” Katrina responds, then, elaborates: “As a woman I am afraid of simple things. Of being alone at home, not having your family around. But I am not afraid of being kidnapped or things like this. These things are sudden, and in your destiny. You can’t be scared of such things.”

There is perhaps a message in what she says, not so much about destiny, more about being fearless. Because how else, in a world turning bizarrely insecure, can one function? “I have learnt to be a lot stronger,” Katrina muses, when asked about insecurities. “Inherently, Cancerians are over-emotional people. I can cry at the drop of a hat. But then I try to reason things with myself and get out of it.”

Later, asked if she has ever been a victim of racial discrimination, perhaps because of her accent, mixing a little levity to take away from the sombreness of the mood: “Which accent are you talking about? When I come to India they think I have a British accent. When I go there my family laughs at me as they think I have an Indian accent. And when I go to USA, they think I have a Canadian accent. My sister thinks that my English is completely adulterdated. And many people here do not understand at all what I speak. Akshay Kumar has told me many times he has not understood a word that I have said!”