For three years, Sunny Leone remained a pariah in an image-conscious Bollywood. This week, she became the toast of the industry - and rest of India - for refusing to apologize for her choices
Kalpana Nair (THE TIMES OF INDIA; January 24, 2016)
"We will be interviewing an individual who is loved and loathed in equal measure in our country.“ That's how journalist Bhupendra Chaubey opened his disastrous January 15 interview with actor Sunny Leone. Within hours, it was Chaubey who was besieged by a huge wave of loathing and very little love on social media. He insisted that the 34-year-old actor feel “haunted“ by her past as an adult entertainment star. This she refused to do. The result was a 30-minute cringefest which now has close to a million views on YouTube. It also, accidently, reintroduced India to Sunny Leone.
For four years now, Sunny Leone has been the most searched for person in India. Yes. She beat Narendra Modi and Salman Khan. So clearly she had the nation's curiosity. But, to quote Colonel Candie from Django Unchained, did she have its respect? In a country where pornography is voraciously consumed but also furiously swept under the carpet, can the porn star ever fully cross over into the mainstream? The problem of course is that the millions who actively fantasize about Leone are also the ones who have written her off as a symbol of moral decay. It's a challenge Leone is acutely aware of. When she came to India, she came with a husband in tow and multiple declarations of monogamy. And she's also famous for focussing almost entirely on lesbian porn, which somewhat inexplicably, doesn't ruffle the feathers of the morality custodians as much. Even so, it's been a tough ride.
“At first, I definitely felt like an elephant in the room, people stare but don't want to say hi. I remember one of the first award shows that I went to, they wanted to put me on stage with another woman or any actor - they all said no,“ she told seasoned journalist Shekhar Gupta recently.
This week, Leone was the toast of Bollywood. Everyone from Alia Bhatt to Rishi Kapoor tweeted support for the actor for fielding offensive questions with such poise. “I will never let anyone get to me. I will never let anyone - man or woman - take me down. It was that spirit in me that made me continue with the interview. Also, if I walked away, I would prove every doubt he raised about me, everything he suggested about me and my past right. I was never going to let him do that,“ Leone said to Huffington Post.
When Aamir Khan took to Twitter to disprove Chaubey's theory that mainstream male stars wouldn't work with her, he said: “Sunny, I wil b happy 2 wrk wid u. I hav absolutely no problems wid ur 'past' as the interviewer puts it. Stay blessed. Love.“ With that the vindication of Leone was now complete.
Of course, she isn't the first actor to crossover from adult to mainstream entertainment. Sylvester Stallone made his debut in a softcore porn film in the 70s long before Rocky happened. “It was either do that movie or rob someone because I was at the very end of my rope,“ he told Playboy magazine in 1978. “Instead of doing something desperate, I worked two days for $200 and got myself out of the bus station.“ But Stallone did only one such film under financial duress. Leone has about 56 porn films to her credit with no sad backstory. Sasha Grey, who debuted in Hollywood with Steven Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience, is another case in point. But Leone is attempting a crossover in India, which makes her trajectory quite a feat.
As acting goes, the general consensus is that she can't. But in this, let's be fair, she is no different from many talentless star kids who populate the film industry. In the three years since her Bollywood debut, she has had most success with roles that reference her porn career or require her to be sexually explicit in some innuendo-laden way. Because that's how India rolls. This week she has a release, Milap Zaveri's Mastizaade. The trailer has her suggestively telling Tusshar Kapoor, “Tum bhi mera doodh pee sakte ho.“ In the film, she also places coins on men's crotches before saying, “Sikka hila toh fail.“
I won't be buying a ticket. But I' ll definitely tune into her next interview.
For four years now, Sunny Leone has been the most searched for person in India. Yes. She beat Narendra Modi and Salman Khan. So clearly she had the nation's curiosity. But, to quote Colonel Candie from Django Unchained, did she have its respect? In a country where pornography is voraciously consumed but also furiously swept under the carpet, can the porn star ever fully cross over into the mainstream? The problem of course is that the millions who actively fantasize about Leone are also the ones who have written her off as a symbol of moral decay. It's a challenge Leone is acutely aware of. When she came to India, she came with a husband in tow and multiple declarations of monogamy. And she's also famous for focussing almost entirely on lesbian porn, which somewhat inexplicably, doesn't ruffle the feathers of the morality custodians as much. Even so, it's been a tough ride.
“At first, I definitely felt like an elephant in the room, people stare but don't want to say hi. I remember one of the first award shows that I went to, they wanted to put me on stage with another woman or any actor - they all said no,“ she told seasoned journalist Shekhar Gupta recently.
This week, Leone was the toast of Bollywood. Everyone from Alia Bhatt to Rishi Kapoor tweeted support for the actor for fielding offensive questions with such poise. “I will never let anyone get to me. I will never let anyone - man or woman - take me down. It was that spirit in me that made me continue with the interview. Also, if I walked away, I would prove every doubt he raised about me, everything he suggested about me and my past right. I was never going to let him do that,“ Leone said to Huffington Post.
When Aamir Khan took to Twitter to disprove Chaubey's theory that mainstream male stars wouldn't work with her, he said: “Sunny, I wil b happy 2 wrk wid u. I hav absolutely no problems wid ur 'past' as the interviewer puts it. Stay blessed. Love.“ With that the vindication of Leone was now complete.
Of course, she isn't the first actor to crossover from adult to mainstream entertainment. Sylvester Stallone made his debut in a softcore porn film in the 70s long before Rocky happened. “It was either do that movie or rob someone because I was at the very end of my rope,“ he told Playboy magazine in 1978. “Instead of doing something desperate, I worked two days for $200 and got myself out of the bus station.“ But Stallone did only one such film under financial duress. Leone has about 56 porn films to her credit with no sad backstory. Sasha Grey, who debuted in Hollywood with Steven Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience, is another case in point. But Leone is attempting a crossover in India, which makes her trajectory quite a feat.
As acting goes, the general consensus is that she can't. But in this, let's be fair, she is no different from many talentless star kids who populate the film industry. In the three years since her Bollywood debut, she has had most success with roles that reference her porn career or require her to be sexually explicit in some innuendo-laden way. Because that's how India rolls. This week she has a release, Milap Zaveri's Mastizaade. The trailer has her suggestively telling Tusshar Kapoor, “Tum bhi mera doodh pee sakte ho.“ In the film, she also places coins on men's crotches before saying, “Sikka hila toh fail.“
I won't be buying a ticket. But I' ll definitely tune into her next interview.