Asian Woman – May/June, 2006

Padma Lakshmi Laid Bare
AW Celebrity Interview

Padma Lakshmi calls me as I am making myself some pasta putanesca. It feels right that she should interrupt me cooking—she has had two successful food shows on the Food Channel in the States, so her calling now feels like a good omen. I am tempted to tell her that I actually did peel my tomatoes and that the basil is smelling just heavenly, but don’t. This is the thing about talking to pro-cooks, whatever small improvements you make you are still just you crashing about in your kitchen: I suddenly feel paralysed by the thought that she probably catches and salts her own anchovies or something.

To be honest I had half expected her not to phone: I am so used to dealing with, shall we say, the more traditional Indian film star for whom calling when they say they will or showing up on time is considered some sort of affliction that might bring them out in hives, that when her soft mid-Atlantic voice asks to talk to me I am caught without pen or paper. I have to have a quick unprofessional race about, wiping tomato juice on my jeans and tracing down writing equipment. 

But then nothing about Padma is normal. She is uncommonly beautiful, has had successful careers as a model, a TV chef and now things are taking off for her as an actor. Oh, and she is married to this writer, I don’t know if you have heard of him, the name’s Salman Rushdie?

There has been much debate and most of it unkind or downright bitchy about Padma’s marriage to Salman Rushdie. Most of it comes, it seems to me, to be unable to believe that a woman as beautiful as Padma is also intelligent. It is how we who are not beautiful talented and successful deal with those who are: if you are beautiful then you can’t be intelligent too, it’s just not fair somehow.

And heaven forbid you start your career as a model, even, as it was for Padma if it was to pay off huge student loans. If you are a model, that is what they mention first; as if it negates whatever you do after.

‘No one ever says, waitress turned actress.’ She says, ‘It is assumed that you are just waiting till something more satisfying happens. If you model then you are always a model turned something else. Of course I am very grateful to modeling, I made money and it helped me gain a great deal of confidence, but it was never all that I was.’

Beauty can sometimes be a problem: especially if it is such striking beauty that the person meeting you is paralysed by it.

It occurs to me that Padma’s trajectory is one where she is constantly working against type. Modeling helped her to get over her negative body image (due to a scar she got in a car crash), being a celebrity chef helped her out of being seen as just a model (although she is the first to say that she got the cook book deal because people wanted to know what a model ate) and then…she married Salman Rushdie. Which people are still finding hard to deal with, it was almost like a step too far, a quantum leap into the international intelligentsia that people in the media couldn’t allow her.

‘What was it like,’ I ask, ‘going from being Padma Lakshmi who had her own thing going on to suddenly being Salman Rushdie?’

‘Being with him is like standing next to a neon sign,’ she says. I get the distinct impression that this is a line she has said before.

I giggle, ‘What, you mean that every now and then he makes your face flash green?’

She tisks me.
 
‘He attracts so much attention. More than I am comfortable with personally. I could do without all the gossip.’ She pauses and then, as if saying something that she has learnt by heart says, ‘Obviously I am very proud and happy to be standing next to my husband. He has done so much for freedom of speech, he is such great man, a great writer. He is a really good egg basically.’ She concludes. ‘And there are a lot of nice things about being with someone of such intellectual stature.’

Padma must get asked about Mr Rushdie a lot, giving stock answers is the only way to deal with this kind of press obsession with your personal life.

I agree with her about the pleasures of being an intellectual: ‘It is kind of the ideal isn’t it? To be with someone who is never going to let your mind atrophy.’

There is a pause and then she says, ‘I don't think there is an ideal.’

What does that mean? I change tack.

‘It can’t have been easy though, holding on to what you were doing at the start of your relationship, he is doing so much important stuff the whole time.’

‘If I had stopped what I was doing, my work, I would have been giving up on myself. I am in a relationship with him but I also have a relationship with myself as an actress and a writer.’

‘Well I think you are very impressive to have remained so true to yourself and your career.’ I tell her.

‘It's not always that easy,’ she admits. My husband says to me, ‘You shouldn't be so humble. You are not that girl anymore; that struggling actresses who lives on pasta and can't afford the rent. That's not who you are today.’

I am stunned. Padma needs to be given pep talks? This revelatory piece of information confirms my suspicion that we should never ever worry about what people think of us because the likelihood of them actually thinking about us at all is minimal. Everyone, even, it turns out, the rich-beautiful-model-successful -writer/actresses, are all too busy trying to convince themselves that they are not the ‘fakerloosers’ they feel like underneath the glamour and away from the flash bulbs.

Padma is about to hit our TVs as a courtesan Madhavandi in the latest Sharpe. In this our Sean Bean (aka Sharpe) is sent to take care of a rebellion in Rajasthan which is causing instability to the British occupation. The rebellion is because of a strong and beautiful courtesan who, in love with a fantastically evil renegade from the East India Company (played by a scene stealing Toby Stephens) sets about ridding her kingdom of both the British, and the young Raja.

‘I loved playing her!’ She enthuses, ‘She is such a strong character. She sees the stability of her power slipping away and does everything possible not to let the British take over her kingdom. She is very Machiavellian. The seat of her power is sexual but she is very clever, very scheming.’

‘And does she come to blows with Sean Bean?’ I ask, hopefully.

‘Yah, I slap him at one point!’

 ‘That sounds like even more fun!’

She starts to laugh, ‘It was! You know, I found myself really enjoying all the fight scenes. I loved the power and energy that I had, I thought, I could really get into this. It was quite scary!’ She pauses, ‘Of course the whole thing looks great, we shot it in the palaces in Rajasthan and the light is so beautiful there.’

It’s kind of difficult to not have a beautiful looking film if you shoot in Rajasthan. I wonder what it was like working for a British TV director.

‘It was a total joy to work with Tom Clegg. He is such a lovely man, totally without ego. He came to work every morning, happy and made us all feel just happy to be there, we all just wanted to make the best film going. The whole thing was a really positive experience.’

I hate to bring it up, but I kind of have to, I take a deep breath and say quickly, ‘SoabetterexperiencethatworkingonBoom?’

‘Yes!’

I feel bad that I have turned the conversation onto such a downer topic so I tell her that I was in Dubai interviewing Amitabh Bachchan when he was filming for Boom and I have never seen him looking so depressed.

‘I can believe it.’ She says, ‘I think I had an undiagnosed nervous break down during that film. I was so embarrassed about it. Gustav just span us this whole line about how great and ‘crossover’ it was going to be. It was all just smoke and mirrors. It was just amazing how far he was willing to go to get what he wanted done: he had the most enormous ego.’

Which is one thing that, at least professionally, Padma doesn't seem to have. Gurinder Chadha and Paul Meyeda Berges said that they were very impressed by Padma when they worked with her on The Mistress of Spices.

‘That was the easiest part I have played.’ She tells me. ‘Geeta is so close to who I am. I related totally. She is very modern, very real. People often ask me if I could play anyone from history who would I play? I always tell them that I want to play real everyday people who are struggling to make sense of things, to make it work, to work the dichotomies of being a modern woman.’

Her performance is undoubtedly assured but there was something that didn't ring true for me. Padma's beauty is a very adult beauty, it was hard to believe that this woman would strop out at table and give everyone in her family a teenage ‘It's my life!’ type shouting at. She just looks too grown up. Her role in Sharpe suited her much better, not because she lay about flashing her long thighs but because the character was a woman.

At the end of our conversation together we are discussing the Oscars (Padma: ‘Oh you must see Crash,’ Me: ‘Oh you must see Walk The Line’) and I mentioned the cover of Tatler with Reese Witherspoon on it. This had caught my attention because it was the first time I had seen her photographed as a beautiful thoughtful woman and not as perky pink and unthreatening. It has recently occurred to me that in our youth obsessed media culture most women have to do the perky funny thing before they can be serious. I share this with Padma and we agree that god knows she deserves to be able to develop; lovely Reese Witherspoon has put in her perky time.

‘I think I have put in mine too.’ She says and I think I would have to agree. These days there is a dignity and a gravitas to the work that she is producing. ‘The next twelve months will be exciting,’ she says, ‘some of the seeds I have planted are starting to show little sprouts.’

It will be interesting to see how she continues to push through what is expected, to go against type and how, as she gets older she is able to grow as an actress, when the cage of beauty weakens a bit. And she will always be able to look forward to the odd pep talk from one of the world's most eloquent men.