Actresses in Bollywood often have to walk the tightrope between being interesting enough for fans and yet remaining uncontroversial and, therefore, likeable.
Honesty about their own weaknesses, especially from newer actresses, is rare, but in a front-page interview to Bombay Times, 21-year-old Amyra Dastur — who will be seen opposite Emraan Hashmi in ‘Mr X’, which releases this Friday — opened up about a whole bunch of ‘Don’t go there!’ topics, such as:
Her anger issues as a child
Daughter to an ex-advertising-professional mother and a surgeon father, Dastur attended Mumbai’s prestigious Cathedral and John Connon School till the age of 13. However, she and her brother Jehangir (a year younger) were subsequently sent to a boarding school in Pune. One day, Amyra was at a friend’s house there and tried to call up her mother. When she didn’t answer the call, Dastur, in anger, smashed her wrist into a glass table. This moment of anger cost her more than a year of her life, as she had to undergo physiotherapy in England and then drop a school year as she couldn’t write for nearly nine months.
Her plans to remain unmarried till at least age 30
In the interview, Dastur admits that she is dating someone but has added that he “isn’t from the industry”. However, she says that she has no plans to marry anytime soon as her mother wants her children to live their lives fully before they settle down.
About looking like a boy when she was younger
Amyra calls Jehangir her best friend and says that she spent a lot of time trying to look like him. She had short hair, buck-teeth, and braces and would often be bullied for her appearance. This, she says, contributed to many of her anger issues as a child, as she would go alone to the loo and cry. In fact, she only started feeling like a girl after attending boarding school, as a result of sharing a room with two older girls.
About going to therapy for various reasons
In what must be a first for a Bombay Times front-pager at least, Dastur revealed that she planned to visit her therapist after the interview. Admitting that she “overthinks everything”, she spoke about her newly-developed fear of flying, which led to her getting panic attacks on plane journeys. Apparently, this fear, which only surfaced in her life last year, is linked to a fear of failing. Meanwhile, she says she’s also undergoing therapy for depression, saying, “Right now, I am just happy if I can get through my day without feeling sad or upset.”
About calling out the industry for exactly what it is
She ends her interview with this: “Being in the industry, I am now aware that things inside are so different than what it seems from outside. People really say something and mean something else. Don’t pretend to like me if you don’t. That’s so high school. That’s what this industry is, so high school.”
