Meet Alia Bhatt: Indian cinema’s secret weapon
If you don’t yet know the name Alia Bhatt, you will soon. The British-Indian actress is a megastar of Indian cinema, famed for her versatility and an impressive career spanning intelligent indies and lavish, commercial movies. Now, she has set her sights on Hollywood, starring, later this year, alongside Gal Gadot and Jamie Dornan in Netflix’s big budget answer to the lack of female-led spy movie franchises; Heart of Stone.
But before we get on to all that, Bhatt wants to tell me – with genuinely breathy enthusiasm – how happy she is to be in London, back in her own house. "You have no idea," she grins, taking a huge sigh of relief. "I bought this house four years ago and then my schedule got really busy and then, bam, Covid. My mother and my sister and I would come here twice, maybe three times a year, so it’s been horrible to have been away for so long. This is the first time I’ve really been home… my other home."
Bhatt has a strong connection to Britain. Her mother was born here, she holds a British passport, and it has always felt like her second retreat away from her base, in her native Mumbai. It therefore makes sense that she would, after having conquered Indian cinema, have her sights set further afield.
"Since I started acting, of course, I’ve wanted to tick that Hollywood box. As an actress, you want to venture into new languages, and new audiences," she says. "It’s also a way for me to step out of my comfort zone. I've been working in India for 10 years now. And I'll continue to work in it, because that is my base. But I wanted also to mix it up a bit and have a new challenge."
As we speak, she is filming Heart of Stone across the UK and Iceland and, she says, is relishing the experience. She is particularly happy to be associated with a project which foregrounds a female narrative. "I like that it’s not a remake with a female lead, but its own thing entirely, creating a new female hero," she says. "The whole experience has been amazing so far and, I mean, I get to work with Wonder Woman, right?"
It was perhaps destined that Bhatt would become an actress. Born to filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt and actress Soni Razdan, she has been on film sets since her childhood. Yet she claims her desire to become a performer came from a much simpler motivation. ‘I just wanted to be the centre of attention!’ she laughs. "As a child, I remember watching the television and just wanting to be inside. I was consumed by those images and that need to be inside it all."
Despite her pedigree, her decade-long career, which has made her one of India’s highest paid actresses, has been decidedly her own. She has garnered as much box office success as critical acclaim, winning multiple awards – not least for her role as a kidnapping victim in 2014’s Highway, and excellent reviews for her part as a Madame running a notorious brothel in India under the watch of the Mafia in Gangubai Kathiwadi, which debuted at Berlin Film Festival and was a hit with audiences.
"I'm not that person who likes to do the same thing again and again; I get bored very easily," she says. "I actually first choose the film, and then I make the character my own. For me, I don’t care how big or small a role is, so long as it contributes something to the plot."
Her latest, however, is certainly a big role. She plays the romantic lead in Brahmāstra – one of the most anticipated moments this year in Indian cinema. Distributed by Disney, it is an epic, hugely ambitious project. Part one of a planned trilogy, it looks set to be India’s answer to the plethora of comic book superhero universes – but one that is entirely fresh. "It’s utterly unique," Bhatt says, emanating pride for the film which has taken up the last four years of her life. "It is based in Indian mythology and is set in this brand-new universe, created from scratch. It is so exciting to be a part of a first for Indian cinema, which is really going to change the way forward."
Love, magic, action – it has it all, and is, Bhatt admits, now an obsession of hers. "People keep asking me, Alia, why can’t you stop talking about this film?" she laughs. "But the fact is, it has been such a huge part of my life and I am so passionate about this story. Everyone who has been a part of this is now my best friend too, my family." She means it quite literally. The set of Brahmāstra is where she met her leading man and co-star, Ranbir Kapoor, who is now her husband. "We had a lovely, simple wedding at home in India, on our balcony, in April," she tells me. "That’s another reason this film means so much to us." A week after our chat, the couple announce they are expecting their first child.
"If you’d asked me what was next, like five years ago, I would have had a whole list of things," she says. "But I recently started to practice the philosophy of enjoying the present. So, I'm consciously not really thinking about what I want to do even two weeks from now. I just want to stay in the moment and really enjoy it."
'Brahmāstra: Part One – Shiva' is in cinemas from Friday 9 September
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