Freida Pinto says India has changed, welcomes complex women in film and television

Freida Pinto says India has changed significantly since her debut in “Slumdog Millionaire” in 2008, particularly in portraying women with complex personalities. She is among nine prominent Indian women featured in the 2027 Pirelli Calendar.

New Delhi: Actor Freida Pinto said that India has changed in many beautiful ways since she made her debut with Oscar-winning British film “Slumdog Millionaire” in 2008 and now there is more representation of women who are not “just duty-bound or puritanical”.

Pinto is one of the nine prominent Indian women who have been featured in the 2027 Pirelli Calendar, along with actor Aditi Rao Hydari, musician Anoushka Shankar, poet Rupi Kaur, model Lakshmi Menon and television host Padma Lakshmi.

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The calendar, which was launched here on Friday, features works by photographers Raghu Rai, Avani Rai, and Solve Sundsbo and puts India at the centre of the project for the first time in its history.

Pinto, who posed in a dark pink dress under a flower-laden bougainvillea for Sundsbo, said that the representation of women in film and television has changed in the last nearly 20 years.

“It has changed in many beautiful ways and there are some changes that are very, very welcome, which is, as far as I’m concerned, is the representation of women in film and television. Being able to see all kinds, not just the duty-bound or the puritanical women, but also the ones with their complexities and not perfect,” she told PTI at the launch.

“I’m more interested in the things that are not perfect. The things that are perfect are boring and are not relatable,” she added.

The actor, also known for starring Hollywood hits such as “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”, “Immortals” and Woody Allen’s “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger”, said that she hoped to see “an explosion of creativity” in the country where the youth are “so forthcoming with ideas and the desire for change”.

“Ideas lead to a lot of creativity. And I hope we see a lot more of that. I hope it doesn’t get stunted. I hope it doesn’t get shunned or suppressed. I hope we just see it explode,” she said.

Speaking about working with Sundsbo, Pinto said she was happy to be a part of his vision and appreciated that he never forced his idea.

“He never came with a preconceived notion of what India and what women should look like. He came in once we were done with our fittings and we had chosen the clothes that we feel comfortable in, he shot the way we felt comfortable in.

“So, there was no real put-us-in-a-box kind of a situation that ever happened. It was very fluid and flowy and always with conversations like, ‘does this feel good? How does this feel?’ So, in that sense, I feel like you’re leaving a mark of yourself in every photograph that has been captured,” the actor said.

Shot between May and September, the 2027 Pirelli Calendar, presented as a box set with two separate pockets, contains a total of 36 photographs: 18 by Sundsbo and 18 from Raghu and Avani Rai’s project.

Pinto will be next seen in “Unaccustomed Earth”, an eight-episode series inspired by Jhumpa Lahiri’s 2008 short-story collection. Also starring Siddharth, the series will premiere on Netflix on December 17.