Slumdog Millionaire star Freida Pinto admits that she is a little overwhelmed by the speed with which she went from being a Mumbai-based model aspiring to be an actress to becoming the kind of celebrity who is pursued by the paparazzi and features on the cover of GQ.
“There is always this fear that your moment is here and that it will never come again. Being in the right place at the right time, and being cast as Latika, is the story of my life as well as that of Slumdog Millionaire,” the Daily Mail quoted her, as saying.
The younger of two daughters born into a privileged middle-class family, Pinto became a model after gaining a BA in English Literature from St Xavier’s College in Mumbai.
Determined to move from modelling to acting, she experienced more than her fair share of rejection, auditioning for ‘hundreds’ of roles before Danny Boyle cast her as Latika.
The rest is history.
The fact that the love story in the Slumdog was echoed in real life with a romance between Freida and British actor Dev Patel has added to their growing mutual celebrity.
Six years her junior, Patel’s post-Slumdog success might not have equalled that of his girlfriend, but the couple remain very much an item even if their working schedules make time together difficult.
“It’s about respecting each other’s work and respecting the relationship. We have to think, “OK, you are working there and I am working here but we are going to have to make time for each other.” We have the same attitude to our work. When I am filming I can’t be thinking about him, and when he is filming he can’t be thinking about me,’ said Pinto.
The relationship seems to be strong enough to withstand the long periods apart and any resentment or jealousies that might naturally arise when two people are working in the same industry.
There will not, however, be a sequel to Slumdog Millionaire, and no chance of the couple being cast together in the foreseeable future.
"I wouldn’t want to work with him, but I don’t mean that in a bad way. He said something similar in an interview that was misinterpreted. What he was trying to say is that so much happened on Slumdog Millionaire, in terms of it becoming so big, that if the two of us were paired in a film as a couple again it wouldn’t live up to that. Nothing ever could. It’s too much magic to live up to on screen,’ she said.