Spain is the flavour of the season it seems. With the runaway success of Zoya Akhtar's ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara' (ZNMD), it's Spain all the way. Close on its heels is Lal Jose's ‘Spanish Masala', slated for a year end release, tentatively. It brings in the tangy flavour of the country once again. And this time it's food, love and beauty, the cannot-go-wrong ingredients that will hopefully have viewers swooning.
But the most charming ingredient in this film is 26-year-old Austrian model and actor Daniela Zacherl. This is her maiden feature film and it's in Malayalam! Daniela, of course, is very excited about her unique debut and is taking the challenge head on. “I have been acting for the last one-and-a-half years,” she says with a big smile, revealing her perfect pearly teeth. Daniela is beautiful in the true sense of the word. Still glowing and fresh after her long flight from Europe, she talks about her first trip to India. “It's a big change and I have had really no time to think,” but despite that she is all sprightly and ready on the set.
In Malayalam films
You wonder about her starring in a Malayalam film.
“They found me. Sinjo, a Malayali, who lives in Vienna found me through my agency. They invited me for an audition and selected me,” she says gently.
But why a Malayalam film? “I am into new cultures and travelling and this is very different. I am most excited about the fact that this is so different. I am really looking forward to it,” says the actor who is a trained ballet dancer. She has done three years of “show dancing” and in 2007, her group called ‘Millennium Dancers' participated in the Cheer Dancing World Mastership. Daniela excels in the hip-hop style. And she has a lot to dance about in the film too. “It's great. I have quite a few dancing scenes. It is not a problem because I am familiar with different dancing styles. I don't have a problem catching up with the choreography.”
The change to an almost strange land, culture and work ethic finds her rising to the challenge. Nothing is a hurdle, and nothing cannot be overcome, is her mantra, it seems.
With her absolutely charming looks and courteous ways, Daniela seems to have gelled with her co stars and other colleagues famously.
On the sets she is seen gaily chatting away, trying out costumes and plainly happy to be there.
That's what, one guesses, makes her so much a part of this film which she says, is a love story, a young girl torn between two loves.
Parts of the film have already been shot in Spain, this has acclimatised Daniela to the ways and methods of our film industry. She has adjusted well to the change.
The European acting style is understated unlike here “where it is bright and powerful.” She loves it of course as it is a new learning experience and that, she says, is the “most important thing of the industry here.”
Young as she may be, Daniela speaks with much thought and understanding.
Acting under one of the best directors in Malayalam cinema, she feels she is extremely lucky to be where she is.
“He is a great director because a movie is about finding a unique language, something which people of Austria, Germany and Kerala will understand. I think Lal is speaking this language. It is a pleasure to work with him.”
And it indeed has been a pleasure for her to work in circumstances that have landed her in happy and hilarious coincidences. Communication has been a wee bit of a problem but that has also been the source of some funny confusion, like her being misunderstood for the cook in Spain. With a bit of Spanish, English, Malayalam and even German (one of her co-stars is a German), the ‘khichidi' has been comic and a novel experience. Her German co-star, Clemens Berndorff, whom she met on the sets, and is also from Vienna, has become a good friend.
The film industry in Europe is very structured unlike here where improvisation is on the sets, she understands. That is a challenge she finds interesting.
Besides films, Daniela loves sports especially skiing and winter sports. She is into yoga and swimming too and has been a vegetarian for the last 11 years.
But it is acting that she loves and would like to pursue. And Bollywood. But for the moment it is “namaskaram Kerala”, she says, looking ever so pretty.
Published - October 02, 2011 05:53 pm IST
