'I'VE BECOME MORE FEARLESS AND AUTHENTIC NOW'

THE BIRTHDAY GIRL HUMA QURESHI WHO JUST TURNED A YEAR AND A MOVIE OLDER IN JULY, COULDN'T HAVE ASKED FOR A BETTER YEAR WITH A GOOD LINE UP OF FILMS IN HER KITTY THIS YEAR AND IS LOVING HER BOLD AND MATURE NEW IMAGE. OUR STUNNING STAR OPENS UP IN A CANDID CONVERSATION WITH PROVOKE MAGAZINE

- NAMITA GUPTA

Huma Saleem who Qureshi has been in the industry creating her own niche with some very interesting projects and has won many awards and recognition, has a good kitty of promising lined up theatre to ads and then movies, there's no looking back for this beauty. Who stunning can forget the crime drama Gangs of Wasseypur, the film that earned her several prestigious film awards and a career graph that looked only upwards, post its success. Her acting career has been versatile and how - dark comedies, horror, action, psychological thrillers and most recently a biopic. No wonder then that Huma has been applauded for her vivacious energy and brilliant acting on screen. Here's Huma - up, close and personal...

1. Tell us about your growing up days. What was your dream career in your childhood days?

I was doing a lot of amateur and professional theatre in Delhi and there I found my passion for acting, because of my background in theatre. After that I started getting a lot of calls for auditions so I decided to move to Mumbai. Initially I went through the usual hustle of going from studio to studio. I remember I would pack my bag in the morning with one Indian outfit and one Western outfit and just go for auditions. I started doing television commercials soon, including one with Shah Rukh Khan. One of them was directed by Anurag Kashyap - it was an ad with Aamir Khan for Samsung mobile phone. That was really the ad that got me my film Gangs of Wasseypur. Kashyap kept his promise, signing me for a three-film deal with his company Anurag Kashyap Films and since then there's been no looking back. I always wanted to be an actor, even as a kid and coming from a middle class family, with nobody else in the family from the film industry, I was a bit apprehensive how this dream would come true. I think I was scared to even admit to myself but I guess it was always meant to be.