Freida Pinto: Don’t feel like resting on words like celebrity, superstar

The US-based Indian actor Freida Pinto, who found fame with the Oscar winning ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ and is set to receive International icon award at the on-going 17th edition of International Indian Film Academy (IIFA), says that she is privileged when people consider her as ‘icon’ but she doesn’t believe in giving importance to terms like ‘celebrity’ and ‘superstar’ as for her nothing is permanent.

When IANS got the opportunity to ask Freida that what does the term ‘international icon’ means to her and if she considers herself one, during the on-going IIFA celebrations in Madrid, she said: “I do consider myself international icon. I travelled internationally for nine months post ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ and got success at very young age.”

“Also the terms like iconic have been bestowed on us by people like you (the media) and I feel very privileged and humbled about it. I do feel that I don’t like to rest on words like celebrity, superstar and all of those because I don’t like to give importance to these. I do believe nothing is permanent in this life.”

In a short span of her career in the entertainment industry, this Mumbai-born girl has carved out a niche of her own in world cinema through her roles in films like ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, ‘Miral’, ‘Day of the Falcon’, ‘Immortals’, ‘Desert Dancer’ and ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’.

She has also done her bit for the society – be it aligning herself with social cause like ‘Girl Rising’ campaign or getting together with female stars for a production house to solve the issue of gender disparity in Hollywood.

After attending the awards ceremony on Sunday, Freida will fly off straight to Monrovia (capital of Liberia) to join the First Lady of the US Michelle Obama for Let Girls Learn – a government initiative aimed at helping girls obtain quality education.

Freida, along with Michelle Obama, her daughters Sasha and Malia and their grandmother Marian Robinson – will travel to Liberia, Morocco and Spain at the end of June and early July as part of the Let Girls Learn initiative.

Talking about that she said: “The platform I was given, there would be an opportunity to do things that I was already doing. And with this scale, people will take more notice and the cause will go to wider scale. I feel it’s very important for me that I actually had this opportunity because at the end of the day there has to be extension of what I do. I am just fulfilling my responsibility.”

“Honestly I worked for my campaign last year as well. So I actually didn’t mean to lose it. From the last conversation came the world conversation about girls in India, America and many other part of the world. And from there on born the idea of doing international trip. I jumped on the opportunity as its great to represent and talk about it.”

It’s not just in case, she also feels that it’s high time that people should realise that women are not just about designer clothes or manicure.

“Ask her more than clothes, manicure. I guess it’s more important,” said Freida, who has also in the past raised an issue of pay disparity in Hollywood.

Inputs by IANS

Also Read: Freida Pinto to make her first appearance at IIFA Awards 2016

Murtuza Iqbal

‘Eat Sleep Bollywood Repeat’ is his life Mantra. Dance is his first love and Rani Mukerji is his eternal crush. He is someone who loves being himself, and as for the ones who don’t agree, his reply? “Talk to my hand!”