Nandana Sen on crossing the boundaries of genre and geography with the upcoming Marigold

I am drawn to stories... that are brave, fresh, moving, unpredictable yet always believable. Marigold has a delightful, infectiously funny screenplay that I immediately fell in love with – a story that has wide appeal, yet is quirky, musical, Indian and international all at once! Besides, it came to me toward the end of a year of playing unusually intense roles, though in a variety of genres.

As an actor... my only fear is of getting typecast. Every opportunity to explore a new film style is fantastic for me, and right from my summer theatre days, I’ve always loved comedy. So Marigold was a welcome trip.

Marigold is deeply inspired... by our grand musical romances and yes, it pays tribute to certain archetypal settings and family situations, but it would be wrong to call it formulaic. The director, Willard Carroll, has great passion for our cinema; he has taken a very universal, contemporary romantic comedy and infused it with the exuberant colours and vibrant music of our films. Besides, it’s not as if the musical is a new genre in Hollywood! It’s too magical a form not to get revived from time to time. In recent years, Moulin Rouge worked, didn’t it?

I play protagonists who are intense... fun, original, intricate, and most important, are still absolutely different from each other – whether in terms of physicality, personality, ethnicity, or emotionality – in all my forthcoming releases. In the next couple of months, I start three new films; an intimate drama about a family being torn apart, a Grimm’s fairy tale transported to rural India, and a social satire set in high society. I feel truly lucky.

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