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HYPE: Padma Lakshmi Don't hate Padma Lakshmi because she's beautiful. Hate her because she speaks five languages and is a best-selling author, a skilled chef and a globe-trotting fashion model. Since catching the eye of Helmut Newton six years ago at age 21, the New Delhi-born Lakshmi has graced the pages of Elle, Vogue and Glamour, traipsed down runways for Versace, Armani and Ralph Lauren, and been considered all the more exotic for the seven-inch scar on her right arm--the result of a rather serious car crash she endured as an adolescent. Now the leggy Lakshmi is making her film debut in the Mariah Carey rags-to-musical riches vehicle Glitter as a diva from planet Witch. Lakshmi is hoping the role will launch her movie career and help pave the way for her production company, Lakshmi Films, but she has a faithful audience in any case. Her cooking show, "Padma's Passport," based on her popular cookbook, Easy Exotic: A Model's Low-fat Recipes From Around the World, is a hit on the Food Network. "I've always loved to cook and I'm really good at it," she says matter-of-factly. "People always ask me what I eat to stay so skinny, so I decided to write it all down." Lakshmi's career isn't the only thing cooking in her life--she's been romantically linked with author Salman Rushdie for a year and a half. "He's one of the greatest intellects of our time," says Lakshmi. "To Indian people, he's as large as Faulkner or Hemingway, and when I think about that, I wonder when he's going to figure out that I'm just a silly girl." --Michael Moses |
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But unlike many headline-grabbing actresses, Jolie is even more interesting on-screen than off. The dangerously screwed-up beauties she has played in George Wallace, Gia, Playing by Heart, Pushing Tin and Girl, Interrupted have all been tangible, believable creations. In her first big-budget thriller, The Bone Collector, she easily matched the skill and intensity of Denzel Washington. She's likely to stun audiences as the take-no-prisoners action heroine Lara Croft in Tomb Raider, a fantasy adventure adapted from the video game by director Simon West (see story on p. 54). And who isn't looking forward to watching her later this summer when she plays the sex-obsessed femme fatale who enraptures Antonio Banderas in Original Sin? When Angelina Jolie greets me for this interview, she strikes me as someone fully capable of doing all that she has done offscreen and all that she's expected to do on-screen as Lara Croft. She's dressed in a black T-shirt and black leather jacket, and she looks like she might throw a mean right if provoked. "Call me Angie," she says, reaching out to shake my hand. I can tell she is indeed something like her father--intense, focused. And I have little doubt that, like her father, she'll be original in her thinking. For Lawrence Grobel's interview pick up the June issus of Movieline. PAGE 1 | 2 |