Photo Credit: BollywoodHott

If you haven’t already, check out The New York Times Style Magazine interview with Slumdog Millionaire’s Freida Pinto. The actress is set to appear in Woody Allen’s upcoming film, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, where she plays Dia, a beautiful musician who attracts the attention of a novelist unhappy with his marriage (Josh Brolin). The film releases September 23.

The interview with Pinto relates to her struggle to be cast in roles other than that of the archetypal beauty, while the interviewer, Horacio Silva gently mocks Pinto for her beauty pageant antics. (“It is pointed out to her that she has a habit of answering in evening-wear-competition oratory…”)

Not having appeared in any Hindi-language films, Pinto admits that she has a way to go before she convinces the doubters back home in India, who know her only as a professional beauty and for her role in “Slumdog Millionaire,” that she has the acting chops to match her cheekbones. And although she holds her own in “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger,” alongside a cast that includes Josh Brolin, Naomi Watts and Anthony Hopkins, Pinto’s character is little more than imported wallpaper. Ask Woody. “She’s the perfect obscure object of desire,” Allen said via e-mail. “She’s exactly what I wish I saw when I look out the back window of my house in Manhattan.” [Link.]

But luckily for Pinto, she’ll get to test her acting chops in upcoming film, Miral, where she plays a woman in Jerusalem who falls in love with a Palestinian activist. For more from Pinto’s interview, take a look at this video, where she talks about her unsuitability for a Bollywood lead role and her trouble getting serious roles in Hollywood. (“I don’t think people are fully ready to see a brown-skinned girl in a lead role yet…”)

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