Katrina, Tabu ‘fitoor’ for each other

Actress Katrina Kaif, who will play Tabu’s daughter in the film Fitoor, says the hardest thing for her to do in the film was to pretend that Tabu was her mother.

“She does not look like my mother from any angle. She is like a friend. I enjoyed the days we spent together in the film,” she said in response to a query about the experience of working with Tabu.

“She is one of the warmest people and is so down-to-earth. She is a phenomenal actress so, whenever you are in front of her, you should remember you should not get lost in her performance but contribute to it. We have been fortunate... she was gracious enough to step in,” added Kaif, speaking at the trailer launch of their film on Monday.

Tabu stepped into Rekha’s shoes after the latter decided to leave the film, which is an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic novel Great Expectations.

About her role in the film, Kaif said: “For me, the most important thing was to try and understand this girl’s mind... she has always been a complicated character... is she manipulative? Is she like that for whatever reasons? We spent a lot of time discussing... trying to give life to our interpretation of this character.”

For her part, Tabu admits to being amazed by Kaif’s work ethic.

“I must say that Katrina is the most hardworking actress I’ve ever met, I’ve ever seen and worked with. We had only three days of shooting but the involvement with which she worked was amazing,” said Tabu.

Tabu plays the role of an aristocrat, who is the hurdle that her daughter Firdaus (played by Kaif) has to cross to reunite with her lover, Noor (Aditya Roy Kapur).

When Kaif was asked at the press conference about her fitoor (madness for something), director Abhishek Kapoor intervened: “She is just passionate about work. If you see her on the set, you see that she has the maximum fitoor.

“The manner in which she works and the dedication with which she listens and works, shows she has a fitoor for work.”

“On set, she was always open-minded and she was always willing to push the envelope as far the performance was concerned and personally I’m very happy with the work that she has done in the film,” he added.

Also starring Aditi Rao Hydari, Lara Dutta and Rahul Bhatt, Fitoor releases in the UAE on February 11. — IANS