Deepa signs Preity for 'Heaven on Earth'

Mumbai, Sep 27 (IANS) Of late Preity Zinta has been gravitating towards neo-realistic cinema. After working with Rituparno Ghosh and Jahnu Barua in "The Last Lear" and "Har Pal", Preity has teamed up with Deepa Mehta who has worked with method actresses like Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das.

In a sudden and unexpected move Deepa has finalized Preity to play the battered Punjabi wife in "Heaven on Earth" and the actress is over the moon.

"I met Deepa a while back at the IIFA. She saw my film 'The Last Lear' and loved it. I'm so glad I did this film. It has opened an entirely new door for me. I feel I'm born anew. Right now I'm hungering for a new kind of acting challenge. Doing Deepa's film is another step in the same direction. She's one director I've been longing to work with. When I read the script I said, 'this is it'," the actress said.

Deepa, who decided to do this start-to-finish quickie before plunging into the Hollywood biggie "Luna" with John Abraham, Rachel Weisz, Dustin Hoffman and Chris Cooper, was on the lookout for the right face, personality and approach for the lead role in "Heaven on Earth".

"And I think Preity is perfect!" Deepa said from Toronto where she is now preparing to shoot "Heaven On Earth".

"I first met Preity at IIFA earlier this year. I was stuck by her positivity and her hungering for opportunities to stretch herself as an actress. We talked about the real life character of a Punjabi housewife who goes through the nightmare of domestic violence. Preity was keen but the dates were a problem. They've now been worked out and Preity is on," Deepa said.

The shooting for Deepa's first Punjabi film begins in October. But before that, Deepa says Preity will be attending an acting workshop in Toronto in September "to understand and come to grips with the character's milieu and body language. I think Preity can look very, very Punjabi."

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