Before Cocktail (2012), Penty was offered the female lead in Imtiaz Ali’s Rockstar (2011), but the she turned it down.
Our Correspondent
Actress Diana Penty, who will be seen in Parmanu: The Story of Pokhran next, has spoken about refusing the Rockstar (2011) role that eventually went to actress Nargis Fakhri.
“The one thing I can say looking back is that I have no regrets. I have definitely chosen to do things in my career in a slightly more difficult and risky way. To be honest, at that point of time, I would not have been able to pull of that character which was a bit bubbly and vivacious, completely the opposite of what I was back then. But Imtiaz Ali, thankfully remembered me and thought of me while writing Cocktail,” said Penty.
Before Cocktail (2012), Penty was offered the female lead in Ali’s Rockstar (2011), but the she turned it down. Heer’s role was eventually played Fakhri. Rockstar was hit largely due to the stellar act of Ranbir Kapoor.
After a bright start to her career with Cocktail (2012), her next film Happy Bhag Jayegi (2016) took four years. While promoting Lucknow Central (2017) last year, Penty had promised that she would do more films.
Penty had her reasons for the long break. While she did no films, she claimed she had been flooded with offers.
“Well, I read a bunch of scripts at that time and the process took a while. Also, I did not know how to handle myself suddenly being in the limelight. I think a model can go about doing her everyday chores but after Cocktail, I felt that people’s eyes are on me and thus the phase of doing things anonymously was gone. That took me a while to get adjusted to and thus two years went there," Penty told FirstPost.com.
In Parmanu: The Story of Pokhran, Penty plays Ambalika Bandopadhyay, an intelligence officer who joins Captain Ashwat (John Abraham) in carrying out the nuclear bomb tests. Penty is one of the two female characters in the film. The other female character is Ashwat’s wife played by Anuja Sathe.
Talking about preparing for her roles, Penty said, "I asked [director] Abhishek [Sharma] if he required some kind of gentleness to the character or if he wanted someone really strong. I was not sure what direction was to be given to this character. When I asked him he only said to watch Zero Dark Thirty (2013). I had seen the film many times before but not from that perspective. There is nothing macho about Jessica Chastain’s character, but again there is nothing feminine too.”
Parmanu: The Story of Pokhran will be released tomorrow (25 May).
