CUT for CELLULOID

Ads Grazia completes 16 years, we've been thinking a lot about what it means to come into one’s own. Is it an age’ thing, or is it that moment when your approach to life takes a dramatic turn? For our cover stars, three boldface names who are compelling critics and audiences alike to sit up and take notice, that evolution is just beginning

- NIDANAEEM

 ALIZEH

From the moment she’s on set for this cover shoot, Alizeh’s easy energy rubs off on almost everyone else around. Gabbing with her cocover stars in between shots, eating lunch with the team, egging her manager on to colour her hair – she is unselfconscious to the core. Some might posit that this stems from the fact that she practically grew up on sets. She is, after all, the third generation of one of the most renowned film families in Bollywood. But, as it becomes apparent when we sit down to chat, it is precisely her decision to defer her debut that has allowed her to cultivate such a steady sense of self.

Alizeh has been racking up accolades for her debut performance in Farrey, a thriller where she plays a brainy orphaned girl who gets entangled in a cheating racket at her elite school.

At 27, the actor differs from peers who perhaps felt the pressure to launch their acting careers the moment they hit adulthood. While the path to Farrey has been longer than you’d expect, it’s been entirely on her own terms: “I take a lot more time to process things. And that's one of the lessons I learned from age 18 to 24 – I need to take my time with things and respect the process that I have. I've had a lot of time to understand the way I want to approach films, and the kind of people I want to collaborate with.” She glows as she recounts the effortless friendship she shared with her Farrey co-stars, and the guidance she received from director Somendra Padhi, who insisted that they know the script like the back of their hands. “I wanted to do something good with the role. When you come from a film family, you need to really prove yourself. I wanted it to be a challenging role. I wanted to go out of my way to break through the clutter,” she says.