Bollywood actress Sameera Reddy has managed to strike a good balance between commercial and serious cinema.
She had two big Bollywood releases, Taxi No. 9211 and Naksha, this year and her Bengali film Kaalpurush won the National Award for best film.
The actress has also done several successful films in South India. And now she has set her sights on Dubai.
Strong alliance
"My work has already taken me to four cities in India this week and I will usher in my birthday tonight on the plane, but I am here because I believe that Dubai is a very important market for us. In fact, I have appointed an agent here because there is a vast amount of business for stars like me here and it is not always easy for companies to contact us for events and endorsements.
"I am the first Bollywood actor to have a representative here because I believe that the alliance between me and Dubai should be strong and it should give Dubai the respect it deserves as an important market," she said last week.
Video game
The actress was here for the red carpet gala screening of Kabul Express.
"I love Dubai and am always looking for excuses to come here," she said. "Normally I enjoy shopping and eating out in this city. But DIFF has shown me a different side to Dubai," she added.
Sameera is the first Indian star to feature in a video game and spoke excitedly about this interesting venture.
"I love video games and it is really cool to be part of one. The CEO of the company that produced my game spotted me playing on my portable play station during a flight and proposed this venture. It took about nine months to develop the game and it is great fun. I enjoy playing it myself and it has been so successful that the company is now developing another one," she said.
Under pressure
Speaking about her career, Sameera said that usually stars are under tremendous pressure to have a release every few months, but she has decided to break that norm.
"I believe in quality not quantity. Every film I do must make a mark," she said. "My current projects include a variety of films. Fool and Final with Shahid Kapoor and Sunny Deol is a typical Bollywood masala movie, something that I love doing. I also have Benaam with Ajay Devgan which is an action film," she said.
Best performance
She is most excited about her next Bengali film with Buddhadeb Dasgupta, who also directed Kaalpurush.
"The film is about voyeurism. Thanks to the sophisticated gadgetry available today, this is a major problem that affects people around the world. It is one of my best performances," said Sameera. "I hope it will be featured at DIFF 2007."
