‘I am a busy city girl’

Mona

It was dream of working with Shah Rukh Khan that launched this young model, Elnaaz Norouzi, on to the path of Bollywood. That she was an Iranian, brought up in Germany, and that her visa kept on getting rejected for two long years in a row was just a minor problem. When her father told her that it was a cue that films are not for her, she reverted, “No. It means I need to apply it from somewhere else.” And, when she applied for Indian visa in Berlin (earlier she was trying from Hamburg), she got it, within a week! 

B-town lanes

That was just the beginning. A staple diet of Bollywood films hadn’t prepared Elnaaz Norouzi to what lay ahead. “Many people in Mumbai commit to things they don’t mean to follow,” she says with a tinge of sadness. Her charismatic smile returns a moment later, “I have learnt to deal with it.” Yes, she did get to work with Shah Rukh Khan in two advertisements, but she has already bagged a lead role opposite Ranjit Bawa in Punjab film Khido Khundi. Not being the one to give up on her ‘dream’, Elnaaz prepared well. Punjabi is the seventh language that she can comfortably communicate in now, after Farsi, English, German, French, Hindi and Urdu. “I wanted to be ready,” says this tall, lithe girl with peaches and pink gossamer skin. 

Told on occasions plenty that all it needs to be a Bollywood star is to ‘look good’, she did say her thank you for advice and also prepped her resolve to learn it all – dancing, acting and language. While she took tuitions to speak Hindi, she taught herself reading and writing all by herself. That she dubbed her first, Pakistani movie Maan Jao Naa, in Urdu, by herself is what she counts as her major accomplishment! 

First take

In Chandigarh, on Friday, to promote Khido Khundi, which releases coming Friday, she admits that she has butterflies in her stomach. “I am glad that interviews and promotional events have kept me busy, but I was nervous.” For one, she has high hopes. It’s a sports movie. And, sports prove to be a major connect. That she was an excellent hockey player in her school days and in the film she isn’t the one wielding the stick is one anomaly she laughs at. While she loved the London part of the shoot, she despised the Punjab schedule due to the heat factor. “It was bad. As soon as it said cut, the makeup and hair stylist would scream ‘come’ and make one look fine again. It was worse for Ranjit; he was the one on the field — playing.”

Up next

Post this, Ehnaaz is awaiting release of her Netflix series Sacred Games, where she plays one of the four leads along with Saif Ali Khan, Radhika Apte and Nawazuddin Siddiqui. “They are all such fines actors,” she exclaims.

Now at ‘home’ in Mumbai for last three years, this Iranian beauty loves the hustle-bustle of the city that never sleeps. “It’s much like my early days in Tehran. I am a busy city girl!”

Strong resolve

Told on Many occasions that all it needs to be a Bollywood star is to ‘look good’, Elnaaz did say her thank you for advice and also prepped her resolve to learn it all — dancing, acting and language. While she took tuitions to speak Hindi, she taught herself reading and writing all by herself. 

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