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| Ten Thousand Motels |
Tina Turner reinvents herself as screen goddess
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
MUMBAI: Rock and soul diva Tina Turner, who is playing the role of Shakti in Merchant-Ivory's new film The Goddess , told the media here on Monday, "I think Ismail (Merchant) chose me because of my shakti within. I'm special in that I've had a long run and I'm still here."
The ebullient Merchant, the Indian half of the famed duo which has produced and directed a slew of elegant period films, recalls how he was blown away by one of Turner's incendiary performances at Radio City Music Hall in New York ten years ago.
"She came swooping down on a giant crane, smack into a 100,000-strong audience, and left it spellbound by her energy and charisma," says Mr Merchant,who plans to shoot Turner in The Goddess after finishing his current film.
Turner has spent two weeks touring India on a cultural recce for her new role, boning up on classical Hindustani music with Zakir Hussain. "She'll have to sing in Latin and Sanskrit for the film," pipes up Mr Merchant.
It's miles away from rock-nroll, but the soul queen has been headed East for a while—she's a practising Buddhist and her choice of tunes is now more Buddha Bar than Motown.
Turner claims she doesn't miss the stage any more. "The epitome of my career was when I could fill a stadium with 190,000 people, but now I'm ready to move on to another kind of performance." She's no private dancer, but while recalling her performance with Mick Jagger at the Live Aid concert, she mimics the Mick jig in a flash.
(Hell no, she tells a waiting shutterbug, eager to capture the moment, this one is not for the record.)
The last few years have been spent restfully, in most unTurner-like fashion—pottering around her home in Zurich , taking long walks and sleeping ten hours a day. "move slowly even when I get up," chuckles the once hyperfrenetic performer. Now, she says, she's ready to get back into the world, "not as Mad Max, but as a goddess—that's real power and real love".
[Edited by Ten Thousand Motels] |
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