Freida Pinto – Destination Hollywood

Lady Luck Smiles on Freida Pinto

Talk about being lucky and the pretty face of Freida Pinto comes to mind. With the phenomenal success of Slumdog Millionaire, Freida Pinto shot to worldwide stardom overnight. Being the first Indian actress to have started her career with a Hollywood movie, she has appeared on the covers of about half a dozen magazines such as Vanity Fair, Vogue, Cosmopolitan in just a couple of months, which is no ordianry feat. One cannot blame the Americans for thinking that Freida is the new face of America and for putting up smiling pictures of her on shop doors and windows – after all her name is Freida Pinto and not Freida Kapoor!

Ms. Pinto hails from a Mangalorean catholic community. With her impeccable and ravishing style and fashion sense at all her Red Carpet events, she was hailed as Style Icon by Vogue Magazine (Incidentally, I have seen her photos and slideshows of these events and I must say that she is one breathtakingly beautiful woman… just in case she is reading this ;) ). But the real treat was watching her at the Oscars in her Galliano gown looking like the rest of the A-Listers. Of course, the critics (whose job is to criticise) criticised her for not showcasing her Indian roots by not wearing a Sari at any of these events. But apparently Freida Pinto thinks, “To hell with the critics”. She probably knew what she was doing. She appears well-versed in the art of being noticed and grabbing attention (and holding attention after that). Now she is the most sought after cover girl for magazines back home in India and abroad.

Freida Pinto is one female who probably does not need a publicity manager or has a very good one. All through her Red Carpet events, the petite actress has very candidly expressed her desire to work with several Hollywood stars such as Leonardo Di Caprio (on whom she had had a crush as a school girl, she had said) and Jack Nicholson (whom she missed at the Oscars).

Describing her rise to fame as a “dream”, 24 year old Freida has now landed a role in renowned film-maker, Woody Allen’s next movie, yet to be titled, in which she will be working with Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins and Naomi Watts. Freida is all thanks to her previous director, Danny Boyle (who directed Slumdog Millionaire) for helping her bag this role. The movie is to begin shooting in July 2009 in London. Incidentally, Woody Allen has thrice won the Oscars. Now it is anybody’s guess whether they will be seeing Freida Pinto walk the Red Carpet again!

But all this work and projects has sure caused an upheavel in the actress’ personal life. She has had to break off her engagement with her fiance Rohan Antao (a Mumbai PR agent), after he misunderstood her relationship with co-star Dev Patel. According to reports, she broke off with him over the phone while promoting the movie with Dev. When together Rohan had helped her in marketing and publicity. Now he is quite cut up about the break up and still believes that she will come back, although it does not appear to be likely. According to Freida, she is too busy with work and concentrating on her career to give time to anything else and hence, the break up.

Now all this makes one wonder, when is Freida going to shift to Hollywood for good?