Actor Shriya Saran looks forward to the India release of Cooking with Stella

After creating a stir at the Toronto Film Festival in Canada, Cooking with Stella is set for its India release early next year. Actor Shriya Saran, who plays a major role in this Canadian project, cannot hide her excitement. This is Saran’s second international project after The Other End of the Line where she starred opposite Jesse Metcalfe, the heartthrob gardener from Desperate Housewives.

Saran plays a nanny in Cooking with Stella — written by Deepa Mehta and directed by her brother Dilip Mehta — and, true to her part, she loves babysitting. Her character is called Tannu, a nanny to the two-year-old child of a Canadian diplomat and her husband, played by Lisa Ray and Don McKellar. The film, which is based in New Delhi, is a humorous take on how the foreign couple learns to deal with the concept of domestic help in this country.

“Whenever anyone from abroad comes to India, they are taken aback by the amount of domestic help we have. There are cooks, cleaners, childcare help; they are just not used to it. They also wonder how to behave with people who work for them,” says the actor. Saran has not signed any new projects since she’s waiting for the reaction to this one. The actress, who has done numerous Telugu and Tamil films, hopes to start a full-fledged career in Bollywood. The 27-year-old says she enjoyed working with Ray during the shoot and was shocked to hear the actor is suffering from Multiple Myeloma, a rare and incurable form of cancer. “I spent so much time with Lisa during the shoot but none of us had any idea about her illness,” she says quietly. “But Lisa is so strong. I met her at the Toronto film fest last month and though she has put on a lot of weight because of all the medication and treatment, she was looking as beautiful and radiant as ever. What was even better was that she was still so happy and energetic.”