Shruti Hassan on her debut film, co-star Imran Khan and father Kamal Hassan

How are you gearing up for your debut film, Luck?
I am busy wrapping up dubbing for the film and making sure I don’t get nervous. There’s no point thinking over my performance. I never looked at the film as work because shooting it was a big adventure for me. There were two exhilarating and unforgettable moments—singing before a live audience in a Los Angeles arena (I’ve never done that outside India) and performing all the action sequences.

You have acted before Luck…
Yes, but you can hardly call walking across the screen in Hey Ram a performance. I also did a fair amount of video-related stuff. But this was a full-fledged role in a Hindi film that involved a lot of research and planning.

How was it to act with Imran Khan whom you’ve known since childhood?
He has been a close family friend for over 10 years and we have played together. So, we were comfortable with each other on the sets, which was important as it’s my debut. But once the cameras got rolling, all that became irrelevant, as we were professionals playing our characters. While growing up, we never talked about becoming actors and never in a million years did I imagine myself doing my first film opposite him.

What inspired you to take up acting?
When I enrolled for a voice programme at the Musician’s Institute in California in 2007, I had no clue that it comprised acting too. They told me that you can’t be a good singer without knowing how to act. So, I learnt working on my diction and improving my vocabulary, among other things. I liked it and pursued other courses after that. I was always passionate about acting but this course prompted me to take it up seriously.

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