Interview: Lisa Ray

Whoever said only blonde women should run along the beach in slow motion wearing nothing but a red bathing suit and matching bouncy hair and the perfect curvaceous body that would bring even the strongest of men to his knees to beg for mercy?

As much as an international phenomenon the television series Baywatch became — mostly due to its skimpily-clad lead actresses and equally bodacious leading men — there are some women who can pull off that perfect physical look while also having the right mix of brains and experience to match.

Okay, so Lisa Ray once graced the cover of Glad Rags magazine donning a Baywatch-style red bathing suit, which helped elevate her to international star status as one of the world’s most beautiful women. Thankfully, she had more than just her good looks to maintain some semblance of a modeling and acting career.

A studious student-turned-model-turned-actress, the 37-year-old Canadian-born Indian-Polish star surely found a way to capitalize her career on what seemingly started as an overnight sensation. Since her image (in a black, high-cut bathing suit alongside Karan Kapoor) was splashed on a Bombay Dyeing advertisement in 1998, Ray has managed to build quite the impressive international resume, appearing in several film productions in India, the United States, Canada and Europe.

Okay, it helps she was featured as one of the 50 most beautiful people in Canada in the country’s edition of Hello magazine. Sure, she must have been flattered when she was the only model selected in the top 10 of a Times of India poll of most beautiful women of the millennium. Yet, Ray also had the right amount of brains and chops to build a career that relied less on her looks and more on where she envisioned her place in the bigger picture of cinema and life.

Of course, an international film and modeling career seems to be a natural fit for Ray. After all, not only was she born to a Bengali Indian father and a Polish mother; Ray spent quite a bit of time in her birth city of Toronto, as well as other global cities, such as London, Mumbai, Los Angeles and New York. Not to mention she excelled academically, finishing high school in record time before attending a few reputable institutions of higher learning north of the border.

Let us not forget her award-winning performances in the past few years, including being voted the “Star of the Future” at the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival and nabbing the Best Actress Award by the Vancouver Critics Circle for her role in the Canadian production of the 2005 Deepa Mehta film, Water.

It is these worldly experiences that give Ray quite the perspective on the direction of international cinema. With different regional cinema industries inching closer each day to working together as one collaborative unit, Ray thinks it is only a matter of time before filmmakers truly merge.

“I’d like to see it move in that direction (of coming together),” Ray told Buzzine in an exclusive interview at the 18th Annual Miss India America show here in Long Beach, California on Saturday. “I don’t know if it’s all there. It’s not there quite yet. I’m kind of fortunate, over the last few years, to work in such a variety of productions — European, Canadian, American, Indian, etc.”

Yet, while the multi-national actress thinks filmmakers have a lot of work to do before moviegoers start to see truly collaborative global production, Ray herself is doing her part to be a trailblazer in keeping her eyes on the prize.

“I think there is an international language of cinema, and we can’t lose sight of that,” she humbly said, adding that her own sense of self and outlook on life is consistent with the view she has of where she thinks filmmaking will eventually end up. “I don’t like being divisive anyways. I like actually integrating the idea that you are working for a cause. That doesn’t always happen, but that’s the ideal. You have to be the change you want to see.”

Apparently, Ray, herself, is beginning to see some of that change already at one of the world’s most reputable film festivals staged each year in her own backyard. As the international filmmaking community transcends upon the northern shores of Lake Ontario next month for the Toronto International Film Festival, Ray has seen herself become an integral part of an event that is quickly finding its place as a global player.

“I’m kind of the mascot of TIFF,” Ray jokingly told Buzzine. “It’s become such an awesome film festival. It’s almost a bit overwhelming now. I see the change even in the last five years.”

It is a change Ray believes is a necessary step to international collaboration — that one day filmmakers are as non-divisive as she is today. After all, TIFF has become quite the well-respected film festival, with movies such as Slumdog Millionaire gaining instant international credibility because of its warm reception at what is considered the most fan-friendly movie event in the world.

Naturally, Ray feels a bit of a connection to TIFF, not just because it is based in her hometown, but she has starred in several movies featured at the annual festival, including Mehta’s Water and two other films premiering at the prestigious event this year.

Toronto’s film festival aside, Ray continues to focus on being as versatile in her career as she is in her personal life. In addition to being a model, she has found herself starring in Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada language films, in addition to major Hollywood and Bollywood productions. Most currently, she starred in an episode of Psych and is finalizing a guest appearance in Defendor, which stars Woody Harrelson.

In the end, Ray’s body of work gives her a level of integrity and respect that allows her words to have a certain degree of weight and legitimacy that is hard to find in an industry where lofty goals and ambitions are a dime a dozen. An international actress who envisions one strong global filmmaking community one day, Ray does all she can to be the change she wishes to be. Luckily for her, filmmakers are starting to see her in that light, and that bodes well for her visions of global collaboration and international cooperation.

“I am flattered you called me a Southeast Asian actor,” Ray humbly told this writer. “But frankly, in the work that I do, I don’t get cast that way, because most of the market does not see me that way. I’m fortunate that I am pretty flexible. I am only half-Indian.”

She may only be half-Indian, but she is certainly 100% committed to being the ideal example of the positive direction filmmaking is slowly heading toward — one world, one vision, one story.