For a fourteen-year-old, Ayesha Kapoor sounds surprisingly calm. Her voice doesn’t betray the excitement of a teenager who is just a week away from the release of her second film. “No, I am very excited. It’s been almost five years since Black happened,” she insists. Kapoor plays the female lead in Piyush Jha’s forthcoming film Sikandar.

Nasreen, the character Kapoor plays in Jha’s film is far cry from Black’s Michelle. A Kashmiri girl, who befriends Sikandar and is an ally in the tumultuous life he is faced with, is a character which has many layers to it, feels Kapoor. And essaying it did require a little homework. “I had never been to Kashmir before we started filming Sikandar. We keep hearing stories of violence in Kashmir. When I went to shoot there, I was pleasantly surprised at how non-fussy a place it was,” says Kapoor. While the director did conduct a workshop with Kapoor and Parzaan Dastur, the male lead in the film, Kapoor didn’t miss out on her own bit of research. “I read up a little on Kashmir and the problems there before I landed there for the shoot,” says Kapoor. Following that she observed Kashmiri girls and interacted with some of them before they started shooting. “I observed how they conduct themselves in public, how they dress etc,” recollects Kapoor. “And Nasreen talks very little, it’s more about emoting, getting the body language right. Which was good for me, since my Hindi is still very wobbly.”

While recognition has come to her early in life, Kapoor seems unfazed. “Education is a priority for both me and my parents. It’s quite difficult to juggle films and studies, so I take up acting assignments only when I feel up for it,” she adds. Though she can possibly not reclaim the rewards of being anonymity, Kapoor claims that life hasn’t changed much. “In South India, people aren’t very aware of Hindi films. And my friends in school and elsewhere don’t seem all that star-struck,” she laughs.

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