Allure – September, 2006

Allure’s Face
Padma Lakshmi

The actress was already a successful model and cookbook author when she met Salman Rushdie in 1999. Since then, her collection of television and film credits has grown, including Glitter, The Ten Commandments television miniseries, and this month’s Sharpe’s Challenge on BBC America.

I just saw you as Madhuvanthi, the scheming courtesan in Sharpe’s Challenge. You’re deliciously evil.

That’s because it’s written from the English point of view.

Did you try to influence the way the role was portrayed?

No, the only thing I did was make sure the nude scene was cut out. But I like playing carnivorous women.

Model-actress-cookbook author is not a hyphenate you run across every day.

No, I know, most actresses and models don’t eat. I eat what I want and I exercise.

One of the photos to promote your book Easy Exotic shows you kneading dough in a lacy negligee.

You know, it looks like a lacy negligee, and I hate to disappoint people, but it was actually just a sundress with cotton eyelet lace. I am bending down a bit, so there’s a lot of cleavage. It’s what I call my Anna Magnani shot.

I have to ask you about Glitter. And you are forbidden to say that Mariah Carey was a joy to work with.

No, she wasn’t. She was difficult to work with. To be fair, that was when she was having a lot of personal problems.

Much has been made about the age difference between you and your husband.

Well, it’s a big age difference; what can I say? Some days I don’t notice it at all. And actually we’re kind of old news now. We’ve been together for seven years.

That’s a couple millennia in celebrity time.

I’m a serial monogamist. I’ve only had three boyfriends in my life. And one of them is my husband. He’s very supportive of what I do. When my Newsweek cover [for a story on “The New India”] came out, Salman said, “Even I’ve not been on the cover of Newsweek.”

—David DeNicolo