'Being beautiful doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to act'

Iranian actor Elnaaz Norouzi continues to get a lot of praise for portraying a bold character in the web series 'Sacred Games'.

However, she admits that there was a lot of advice pouring in from everywhere, telling her to be cautious about the role. "When I started off my career, a lot of people told me don't do this, don't do that. You know how it is when you're about to make your first move. 

I do think it's important to pay attention to that, but I also feel that a lot has changed. Right now, in 2018, things are very different from what they were probably a decade ago," says Elnaaz.

Were there any apprehensions about taking up a dark and bold role right in her first Hindi project? Elnaaz replies that she could relate to the character well and that made things easier. "Zoya, my character, is daring, courageous and fearless, and that's what I loved about it," she says. 

"Even now, people tell me 'You have such good looks, you're so tall and you can dance, you should do some amazing work in Bollywood.' And I'd be like, 'I want to do characters.' 

Being beautiful doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to act. That's what I liked about this web series. She's not just this actress in this series, but she has a background that I have to know and be able to act."

Unworried that her character might typecast her, the actor shares, "I made the right choice, because I got to work with such great people, be it the directors (Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane) or actors (Saif Ali Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui). And that means so much."

She adds, "If I was going to do this role in any other small film or smaller production, I might have been worried about how they'd portray me on-screen, but I knew [Sacred Games] was a well thought-out project and it had a meaning. Anyway, nowadays, everyone is doing something or the other that's bold, so I didn't think much about it."