On a yo-yo to stardom!

Nicole Faria. The very name brings to mind a beautiful, dusky face with doe-like eyes. Of late, the talk of the town is about her being featured in Yo Yo Honey Singh’s song 'Sunny Sunny, looking uber-sexy in a bikini!' The song is from her debut film. “Initially, I thought he might have some attitude, but he’s such a chilled out person to hang out with,” she shares. One look at the video and you’ll know she had a blast shooting. “We travelled to Cape Town, Darjeeling and shot a few bits in Mumbai. It has been such a memorable overall experience,” says Nicole, whose dream is to share screen space someday with Farhan Akthar, Shah Rukh Khan or Ranbir Kapoor.

The model-turned-actor is awaiting the release of her debut Bollywood flick, 'Yaariyan', where she plays the role of a college hottie, Jia. It’s easy to say that playing Jia would have come naturally to her because the character is a confident, young woman, who wants to make it big through music and all the guys want to be with her, much like Nicole herself. But the ex Carmelite and Christite says it wasn’t that simple.

“Yaariyan is my first ever acting stint. My co-actors had acted before, either in TV serials or as theatre artistes. But sharing screen space with them and being in the same room as Gulshan Grover and Deepti Naval helped me grow as an actor,” she shares. She informs that most people within the industry said that the movie looks very professional and unlike a film that has a debuting crew. Much credit for that, she says, goes to director Divya Khosla Kumar. “She is such a perfectionist. You know she shot the whole film once on a handy cam before doing the real shoot! Although it was her debut film too, she was very well-prepared,” she reveals.

Ask her if she thinks of the other Bengalurean stars, Deepika Padukone and Anushka Sharma, as competition and she very modestly denies the idea. “I have just started out and can’t think of them as competition. They’re more of an inspiration, considering where they started out and where they’ve landed,” she says. She’s looking forward to visiting here, although Mumbai hasn’t given her much time to miss her home town. “I have been on my toes, shooting and then promoting the film, I haven’t had time to even think of Bengaluru,” she laughs, but admits that it’s high time she came here, since “it feels like forever” since she saw her family.