In an interview with the Huffington Post to discuss Trishna, a re-interpreted Tess of the D’Urbervilles within the Indian caste system (in which she stars as the eponymous character), Freida Pinto discussed her month-long research period in with Rajasthan families for the role:
I remember meeting this one 16-year-old girl who was married. I asked her, “Have you finished school? Do you want to be educated?” She was like, “Yeah. I’d like to but now I’ve got to cook.” She was not resentful, not openly resentful of it. She had almost accepted it as, “This going to be my life from now on.” Those are the kind of influences I drew for my character. Because that’s when it struck me that there is a reality outside my world as well, outside all of us. We’re all outspoken people and there is a reality that exists outside that.
And later, when asked whether her beauty was a detriment or asset to her career, she referenced playing Josh Brolin’s love interest in You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger:
The Woody Allen film, yes, I do feel with playing the seductress and the next-door neighbor, that did come into the picture. But I feel it really depends on me, how I want to play with it and how I want to pitch myself when I go into meetings. Sometimes, being… and I hate saying this, they look for this “‘exotic’ girl in the film. Then they’ll send a script and I read the script and I’m in two lines, which if you actually take those two lines out of the film it has not affected the film at all. The film still continues to run as is. That’s when it’s for me to say that’s not for me.
‘The ‘Trishna’ Interviews: Freida Pinto on Acting, Beauty and the Importance of Saying No’ [HuffPo]
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