Actress Lisa Ray. (Mark Mainz/Getty Images)
The Toronto International Film Festival has been very good to hometown girl Lisa Ray. At TIFF in 2002, she was voted Star of the Future for her role in Deepa Mehta’s musical romance, Bollywood/Hollywood. Three years later, Mehta’s Water, in which Ray stars as a Hindu widow in 1930s India, premiered on TIFF’s opening night. This year, Ray returns with two new films, playing a farm woman in the Canadian western All Hat, and as a lesbian in the South African period drama The World Unseen. The day of All Hat’s premiere, Ray spoke to CBC News about the benefits of being an actress in her thirties.
Q: You’ve played a lot of unconventional or marginalized characters: a call girl, a widow in exile, a wife coming out as gay in 1950s South Africa, a single woman running a farm. Do you seek out roles that are offbeat?
A: Yes, I think so. And I think the choices you make send out a message for future roles. I want to keep stretching myself and I’m very grateful for the diversity of roles that come my way.
Q: With the success of films like Water and Bend It Like Beckham, and a growing number of movies like The Namesake and Brick Lane that feature South Asian casts, being made in Britain, Canada and the U.S., are you finding a greater variety of Indian roles coming your way?
A: I think it’s a great trend, but ironically I’m not really doing that kind of work. It’s not that I’m running away from it, but once I’ve experienced a certain kind of character and assimilated that, I want to do something completely different. After Water, obviously there were a lot of similar scripts that were sent to me. But not as magnificent, of course. Water is a hard act to follow. But I’ve steered away from that. Not because I don’t want to play an Indian character, but because I’ve done that. And here’s the other irony: I’m in this interesting place where I’m not pegged as any particular ethnicity [Ray’s mother is Polish and her father is Bengali]. I can play a number of different kinds of character. And, in all fairness, I’m only half-Indian. In some cases I’m not Indian enough for an Indian role.
A: Yes, and I really dig that. For instance, I did a fair amount of prep for All Hat. I grew up visiting farms and knowing the landscape, but it was still difficult to situate myself as a woman running a small farm. So I spent time with Brad Smith [who wrote the novel that the film was adapted from] in his little town. One of his neighbours was kind enough to let me follow her around while she worked on her farm. I love doing that kind of thing. It’s an opportunity to connect with all kinds of people living lives very different from your own.
A: Modelling taught me a lot. I’m very clear now about why I do what I do. It has nothing to do with red carpets, or glamour or dressing up. I’ve already experienced that and gotten it out of my system. That was one of the reasons why I left modelling and left Bombay, because the celebrity culture is such a bubble. It distances you from other people. And those experiences with others, that’s your clay, that’s what you build a character from.
A: Yeah, I’m a baby in this business and I’m on a huge learning curve. But I think that I came to this calling, or it came to me, at a point in my life when I was ready for it. As an actor, I think it’s really important to know yourself. And my 20s were a writeoff, as they were for a lot of women. Sure, it was great, I had a hot body, but it was kind of a waste! You don’t know yourself in your 20s. But in your 30s, everything changes. You’re so much more comfortable in your own skin. In this business, it’s important to have an almost mercenary honesty towards yourself and your work, and I think that’s much easier to do when you’re older.
All Hat screens at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 13.
The World Unseen screens at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 14.
Rachel Giese writes about the arts for CBCNews.ca.
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