Akshay is true to his roots: Nimrat Kaur

Nimrat gets candid about completing a decade of her career in Mumbai, her film Airlift and qualities she admires in co-star Akshay Kumar

From playing Ila — the lovelorn, despondent housewife in The Lunchbox to essaying the role of an ISI officer in Homeland series, there has been no looking back for Nimrat Kaur in the industry. “My journey so far in Bollywood has been like a fairytale,” she says. “I have been working for almost a decade in Mumbai. As it is in the career of any actor, I feel it is the key point or a significant role like the one in Lunchbox that one remembers. For me, it is the unpredictability factor in terms of roles and characters that one portrays, which has made my journey in B-town very interesting. As an actor you don’t know what lies ahead or what character you will be essaying in your next project. It is only after a role comes your way that you consciously decide what you want to do or not.”

She now plays the fearless and outspoken Amrita Katyal in the Akshay Kumar-starrer Airlift. For Nimrat, the impactful and touching subject of the film and an opportunity to share the screen with Akshay were driving forces to take up the role. She says, “When I read the script I was shocked that I didn’t know about this major event in history and I don’t think a lot of people knew about it either, and this is when we belonging to the modern generation consider ourselves to be fairly aware and we talk about events happening across the globe. I was overwhelmed to be a part of this film and the opportunity to share the screen with Akshay Kumar, who I have always admired.”

In Airlift, Nimrat plays the wife of Ranjit Katyal (Akshay Kumar), a billionaire businessman who aids the high-profile rescue operation. She elaborates, “The character of Amrita is someone who is very outspoken, fearless and doesn’t shy away from speaking her mind. She goes through a journey with her husband starting from the mayhem in Kuwait. The opening scene goes on to show a grey morning after the Iraq-Kuwait war where thousands are left homeless, penniless and suffering from severe identity crisis. Amrita is unable to get a grip on her husband’s choices thereon, as she has always seen him as a shrewd businessman who goes on to chase whatever he wants; suddenly after the war breaks out, she sees a major change in his personality. Ranjit unknowingly becomes the man who takes up the role of rescuing 1,70,000 Indians who are stranded in the war zone.”

Working with Akshay Kumar who is known for his extremely disciplined life and is touted as one of the fittest men in the film industry, was a great learning experience for Nimrat. She says, “Akshay practises what he stands for. He believes in living as he has grown up and is true to his roots. He doesn’t blindly stick to fashionable food fads or crash diets or doesn’t believe in avoiding intrinsically Indian food that we have grown up with. He is super disciplined and there is nothing cosmetic about him. He is not obsessed about anything unnatural, which I feel is a very healthy and balanced approach towards life. His positive outlook and tremendous energy livens up the sets.”