H'wood actress dances to 'Om Shanti Om' with Anil, says she's obsessed with film

Actor Catherine Zeta-Jones has confessed that she is obsessed with the 2007 Hindi musical Om Shanti Om, and knows it ‘verbatim’. She joined moderator and actor Anil Kapoor in dancing to the film’s title track at the 17th Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in New Delhi on Saturday.

“My friends Shah Rukh and Farah are going to be very happy,” Kapoor said, acknowledging the film’s lead actor, Shah Rukh Khan, and director Farah Khan. The film also served as the film debut of actor Deepika Padukone.

“My kids have been brought up singing Om Shanti Om,” Zeta-Jones said, while her husband, actor Michael Douglas, nodded next to her. “It’s true,” he said, and added, “On Christmas, everyone in our country sings Christmas carols, our house sings all the songs from Om Shanti Om.”

“I’m a big Bollywood fan,” Zeta-Jones said, adding that she would have loved to do a typical Hindi song-and-dance film in her career.

“I don’t think people understand my obsession with Om Shanti Om,” she continued, suggesting that it would have made for a wonderful Broadway musical. “But I can’t play it because I’m not Indian,” she said regretfully. “You look Indian; my niece looks like you” Kapoor said, which Zeta-Jones took as a compliment. “I’m very honoured,” she said, “Some of the most beautiful women are from India.”

The veteran Indian actor, who has been married to his wife Sunita since 1984, asked Douglas and Zeta-Jones about the secret to their long relationship. The couple married in 2000. “Happy wife, happy life,” Douglas shot back, and admitted that people said their marriage ‘wouldn’t last’.

“I was lucky enough to marry my best friend,” Zeta-Jones said. “The secret to our relationship is being kind to each other and having a sense of humour.”

She said that although they came close to appearing in a film together once – a part of it was supposed to be set in India – the project never materialised. If they ever agree to working together in the future, she said, she wouldn’t want them to appear as a married couple, calling the idea ‘voyeuristic’. “There’s something unsettling about watching a married couple on screen,” she said.

The couple could get a chance to work together soon, because Douglas, 75, has no intention of retiring anytime soon. Having being exposed to a younger generation of fans through the Marvel superhero films in which he appears as Dr Hank Pym, the actor said, “I’m planning on working till they take me out.”