Meera likes to make an impact — and she doesn’t seem to care if it’s a good or bad one. Being politically correct doesn’t appeal to her, she’d rather deliver punchlines, create controversies or even allow herself to become the target of jokes. She’ll bat her eyelids and wonder out loud why she gets bashed so frequently.
I meet the actress during her recent trip to Karachi and I wonder if it’s all an act, the statements that don’t make sense, the allegations she makes as part of normal conversation, her domesticated views on how ‘good’ women should be and her frequent references to how ‘beautiful’ and ‘famous’ she is. I come to realise, though, that this is just how Meera is.
“I don’t take myself too seriously,” she tells me. “I like to laugh and I plan jokes beforehand when I am about to make a red carpet appearance or have a press conference. I want people to enjoy themselves with me. They keep asking me about my age and so I let them. I just joke back about it. I am the most famous actress in the country and these things are unimportant to me. I can’t let them become the focal point of my life.”
Desired and mocked in equal measure, the star’s greatest creation may be herself. She opens up to Icon about her fame, her mistakes and her contemporaries without pulling any punches …
“2017 is going to be an exciting year for me”
“I am going for a new look,” she says, “and I have some exciting plans.” One of her projects was aired this Eid on TV, a comic telefilm produced by MD Productions and directed by Kamran Akbar titled Socha Tha Pyar Na Karengay.
“I loved working in the Hum TV telefilm because it was the first time that I acted in a comedy,” she says. “I am not too happy with Shor Sharaba. I was supposed to have just a guest appearance in the movie but the makers deliberately elongated the role and because I had already signed on, I couldn’t say no. The producer of Shor Sharaba even owes me money. We worked together in the 2008 PTV drama Iqra and since then, he owes me 60 lakh rupees.”
