The Empress Strikes Back

She’s spiralled to dizzy heights with every successful film. Anushka Sharma has become india’s sweetheart after sultan. Anuradha Choudhary in conversation with the girl on top.

- Anuradha Choudhary

Anushka Sharma is smiling. It’s been a grueling day at work. Photoshoots and meetings, the works. You’d expect her incandescence to dim. You’d be wrong. And she has enough reasons to smile lately. Sultan has grossed, God knows how many hundred crores at the box-office. This after PK created a tsunami at the ticket windows. It wouldn’t be wrong to say Anushka has climbed to the top of the Bollywood ecosystem. Considering she has a Karan Johar and a Imtiaz Ali film in her kitty, the going is only going to get better, bigger and bolder for her. Yes Anushka is creating magic. And she’s doing it her way. She’s not the sort to jump onto rooftops to stake her claim to the proverbial throne There’s a calm nervous energy about her. Contradiction in terms, perhaps? Well that’s Anushka for you.There’s that calm that puts you at peace and yet she’s like that duck peddling furiously below the waters. In a world of plasticine, she’s real. Her warmth envelops you from miles away. And her laughter says all’s well with the world. She’s self-confessedly shy, awkward with words. But then who needs words, when her silences too win her applause on screen. A free-wheeling interview with the new empress of box-office. Read on...

First it was PK, now it’s Sultan. Two blockbusters back to back. So have you finally cracked the formula for a hit film?

(Smiles) Oh yeah! I’ve cracked it. It’s called a script. It’s called good content. It’s called doing something different that people have not seen before. PK had its own novelty. Sultan has its novelty like the sport, Salman and my pairing, seeing a female wrestler. It’s a different Salman Khan film. Content is baap and there’s no two ways about it.