Panaji: Hollywood star Catherine Zeta-Jones says the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer 'Om Shanti Om' is one of her most favourite films and that she and her son have watched the movie several times. The actor was speaking at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa. The 'Mask of Zorro' actor was attending the festival along with her actor husband Michael Douglas.
Zeta-Jones is also a fan of Ritesh Batra's epistolary romance 'The Lunchbox', starring late Irrfan Khan, Nimrat Kaur and Nawazuddin Siddiqui. "I have always been a huge fan of Bollywood and being a singer and a dancer, I dreamt (that) maybe the British film industry would do the Bollywood type of films and I would be able to be cast, she says.
The actor adds that she showed her son 'Om Shanti Om, which is one of her favourite movies. "And when his (sons) kid friends came over, he is like, 'You want to see a movie from India, it's my mom's favorite movie'. We love it and we watched it many times."
Zeta-Jones says if she had to do a film in India, she would love to feature in a movie like 'The Lunchbox', which is one of her "favourite movies of all times". The actor had come across the movie during a long international flight. “I watched it twice back-to-back. I met the director of the movie when he was in London. I am still waiting for him to write me another Lunch Box. I am a big fan of that movie. It touched me in a sense of being such a quintessential Indian movie, it just touched me as an European woman so much,” she adds.
Talking about her presence in India for IFFI, the actor said, "India is very dear to our hearts. We have been here a few times and we have just been welcomed with such open arms, actually. The actor also narrated a personal story of how an Indian doctor saved her life when she was just 18 months old.
"India has touched me in a very serious, personal way... It was an Indian doctor who saved my life through tracheotomy when I was 18 months old. So, I wonder why, when I come to India, I have this feeling of coming home and this is like tingly feeling and maybe there's something to do with that, she said, recalling how she became breathless due to a virus. The reason why I am actually here is because of the brilliance of an Indian doctor in Swansea, South Wales in the UK. So I am forever indebted to him, says the actor, who has a visible scar on the front of her neck from the procedure.
