On bikinis, sperm donors, political correctness and hopeless flirting.
The next time your father gives you one of those ‘impossible is nothing’ lines ask him to convince Yami Gautam to pose in a bikini for FHM, or for that matter even for a sequence in Steven Speilberg’s film! In over ten different ways, we coaxed her to say yes to wear bikini, but she refused to budge. “NO. I won’t wear a bikini. Not even for Steven Speilberg. If he ever approaches me for a film, it will be more on the basis of my acting skills, and not on the basis of the two-piece.”
It’s her denial that has kept her away from FHM and those Google pictures searches of her chaste. “I was apprehensive about shooting with FHM, the clothing part worried me a bit. If I shoot with FHM, I should be able to do justice to your content and in some way add to your immense popularity. If I am not able to do that, what’s the point of me being on the cover! I am not comfortable with the bikini image because that’s not what I am. Also, I didn’t want to portray myself as someone who is desperate for being called a ‘hot chick’ because you guys have helped a lot of women break their stereotypes. Being on your cover is of great importance and I didn’t want to take it lightly. So, we had to come to a consensus where you get something hot, and I get to keep my existing image intact.”
That’s for the bad news, the good news is that the 25-year-old isn’t under some lifetime oath to wear clothes that cover her wrists and ankles. “People change so do their opinions, so I wouldn’t really say that I will never wear a bikini, but as of now, it’s a dead NO.” For Now. Yes, we did add the ‘for now’. Yami is not new to the FHM fold, she has been pretty clued to our covers. “I loved every cover of Katrina Kaif. Also, the one that you guys shot with Nargis was brilliant.”
As for work, the Himachal born, Chandigarh bred girl is completely focused, she is busy like never before and is still fine-tuning herself to the slaving life of Mumbai. Infact, she is so busy that this interview of hers was rescheduled thrice from happening at 10.30 am on a Sunday to late in the evening that day and finally happened at 3.45 on a Monday. When we finally spoke to her she was travelling to Pune. “I am now living every word of those interviews that I read of film stars about how Mumbai occupies you completely. I know it sounds like a cliché, but I am never not occupied in something or the other.” Even in her prayers, something that is as much part of her daily routine as rushing from one shoot to another, all she does is pray about getting more and more work.
Yami has come a long way in her life from her initial appearances in television commercials and soap operas your mother watches. She has also gotten way past the stage of thinking being called ‘Yummy is cute’. “Oh God! Calling me Yummy is so cheesy. I am used to of being called Yami to Yummy to Yemen from school days, so I have given up. When I was in school, I would fear my name being announced on the stage because the boys would later take my trip. In fact, a childhood friend called me Yemen, I don’t why, but she did.”
Yet somehow, for someone who made a huge splash with her debut film Vicky Donor she’s had a slightly uneventful couple of years. Her next movie after Vicky Donor, Total Siyappa tanked at the box office, but such is her hold on the audience that they have now moved their attention and expectation to her next release Action Jackson, which co-stars Ajay Devgan, Sonakshi Sinha and Kunal Roy Kapoor.
She hasn’t forgotten how much of her success she owes to VD, “I wouldn’t have been on your cover if Vicky Donor wasn’t my film. Everything that I have today is because of Shoojit. Working with him will always be my priority.” As for other film that she is currently filming, there is no point talking about them because everything has to be protected like Nuclear launch codes, so we picked on her for the flak that she received on twitter for endorsing fairness creams, “Endorsing a fairness product isn’t debatable nor do I need to defend it. I endorse them because that’s my job. Whether a celeb uses a product that he endorses or not completely depends on them,” she shoots us down.
45 minutes down the interview, we asked her something we’ve been itching to for a while – would she date someone who is a sperm donor, only to have her freak out mid question. “I would never date anyone who donates sperms to earn money, might still consider someone who does it for charity. When the script of Vicky Donor was being read out to me, I was just saying ok…ok…okay and even the narrator was giggling all the while. I came back home and I told my mom about the film and even she was like ‘okay’. No one knew how to react, so you can understand why dating a sperm donor isn’t as cool as you think.”
And what are the other kinds of men you will never date? “I can never be with a man who fantasises about Carmen Electra, Cindy Crawford and Pamela Anderson.” This is where the conversation got a bit doozy for us because as you know there is Carmen Electra heating up the front of the book as the Access Girl this month. But then full disclosure is for fools. “Certainly Ben Affleck. If there is an embodiment of how my man should be, it has to be Ben. If you are seriously match making then I would like to take things forward with someone who is a bit different from me, adventurous and open minded, but again, he shouldn’t be a Pam (Anderson) fan,” she says ruling out anyone born in the 80s.
And what about the films that come to her, how does she select them. “Firstly, I look at my character, then the story and then the director.” But shouldn’t it be like story first, then the director and then the character. “Not really. A script may not always be impressive. A film like Barfi, do you think, it would have sounded as promising to the actors on the papers as it turned out to be?”
By the time we finished our chat, she had reached half way to Pune, we were still moping about bikinis and she was talking about how much she’d love to be in a remake of DDLJ. “It’s impossible to imagine DDLJ without him,” she says. We continue to mope about the bikini. Or the lack of it.
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