Katrina Kaif won’t stop talking. “Laila from Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara was closest to how I am in real life. And then there was a really exciting phase where Ali [Abbas Zafar] and I were finding our feet together in Bollywood, having worked with each other on New York before. We did this film called Mere Brother Ki Dulhan. I don’t know if you’ve watched it…”
Have I watched Mere Brother Ki Dulhan? I got bangs because of Mere Brother Ki Dulhan. At the start of the rock anthem ‘Dhunki’, Katrina’s character Dimple stands between two buses and strums her guitar with so much aura that every window, including the windshield, shatters. Then, she walks towards the camera in slow motion, eyes heavily lined with kohl, bangs dancing in the wind. The next day, I resolutely went to my longtime hairdresser armed with a screenshot of Dimple, promising that I was not on the verge of a mental breakdown. I did end up looking like I could shred a guitar, sure, except I hadn’t accounted for the fact that bangs look very different on unstyled curly hair, so think less Dimple Dixit, more Slash in 32 degrees of Mumbai’s humidity.
That ill-conceived memory is drowned out by Katrina’s voice, which, out of excitement, has shot up a few octaves. “We had a blast on Mere Brother Ki Dulhan. There would be a script for the scene, but once we were on set, we’d just use it as a starting point to improvise from. I cannot tell you how much we laughed and enjoyed ourselves while making that film. There is a sense of humour that only Ali can bring out in me. We can have deep, intense conversations exclusively through GIFs.” Katrina has monologued for seven minutes straight, “I want to start by talking about your filmography” being the sole sentence I’ve managed to get in since our call started. I don’t interrupt her. The alternative is the circumspect, tight-lipped version I met on set a few days ago, consummately businesslike as she posed for her Vogue cover. Perhaps it’s because there was an entire crew of people around us, anathema to this dyed-in-the-wool Cancer, the introverts of the zodiac wheel. Make no mistake, dressed in custom looks from Abu Jani Sandeep Khosla, one of them a kimono-inspired dusty rose anarkali that brought out her flushed cheeks, with her hair cascading down her back like an apsara in a Raja Ravi Varma painting, Katrina looked every bit the star she is. But there were no disingenuous attempts at relatability by making small talk with people around her. That has never been her style. Instead, she consulted the monitor after each shot and made sure to highlight the ones she preferred. Katrina likes things done a certain way and makes no bones about it, even if it means being labelled ‘demanding’ or ‘standoffish’.
Except she is uncharacteristically at ease speaking with me one-on-one from London a few days later. I’ve caught her at a busy time; she keeps apologising for not turning on her camera because she’s on the move, but her voice is animated enough to make up for the visual absence. “I love that you chose to open with something I love, which is my experience of my favourite films,” she says. As it happens, we’re not the only ones on this stroll down memory lane—clips from Katrina’s movies appear in heavy rotation on Gen Z’s Instagram algorithms. It’s been 18 years since her sky-blue tasselled dress from ‘Zara Zara TouchMe’ (Race) and bubblegum-pink outfit from ‘Jee Karda’ (Singh is Kinng) gave young girls wardrobe goals, 17 since a legion of young boys fell in love after watching her stick her tongue out in ‘Tera Hone Laga Hoon’ (Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani) and 11 since ‘Afghan Jalebi’ (Phantom) became a hit by having her do little except canvass a tavern in a long-sleeved military coat, utilitarian jeans, combat boots and smouldering eyes. It’s easy to use these moments, alongside hyperbolic fan memes—like ‘Katrina’s gloss had more screen time than some actors’ and ‘Life was good when Katrina spoke in cursive Hindi’—to nostalgia-farm on the internet. It’s even easier to chalk her success up to her distractingly good looks; she was, after all, the first Bollywood actor to have an official Barbie modelled after her. And while there’s no denying that pretty privilege can give you a leg up in an industry that runs on beauty, Katrina has always been determined to make people look beyond her face. When her acting skills came into question, she worked with coaches and enrolled in workshops to course correct. When her dancing was called robotic, she submitted herself to the tutelage of Kathak guru Veeru Krishnan, training in a 10-by-10-foot room without air conditioning from 7am to 1pm. This became the foundation for what she was able to channel for ‘Sheila Ki Jawani’, ‘Chikni Chameli’, ‘Kala Chashma’ and ‘Suraiyya’—songs she prefers to call “high-energy dance tracks” rather than item numbers. “Music and dance are such an integral part of Hindi cinema,” she explains. “When I entered the industry at 17, I was transfixed by how Sridevi, Rekhaji and Madhuri Dixit moved. It was poetry in motion. Women have been an inspiration for so many art forms through the ages, and dancing, for me, is among the most important ones. But it has to come from a place where it brings a true sense of joy for the person performing.”
