Freida Pinto is the latest actress to join forces with Andy Serkis for his directorial debut, Jungle Book: Origins. Pinto is not only loaning her voice, but is playing one of the actual flesh-and-blood roles alongside Matthew Rhys and Rohan Chand. Freida Pinto, who found popularity with her appearance in “Slumdog Millionaire”, is excited to be a part of “Jungle Book: Origins”. She says her life has come full circle with the Hollywood project.
Freida is voicing Mowgli’s adoptive mother in the Warner Brothers’ motion capture live-action adventure adaptation of “The Jungle Book”, based on the novel by Kipling. And the actress asserts that the film is worth the wait. “It’s going to be a while for ‘Jungle Book…’. It will release in 2017. I am pretty excited about it because we all used to watch it on Doordarshan every Sunday. We loved watching it. Life kind of becomes full circle to participate in a project like that,” Freida told the media.
Directed by Andy Serkis, who also gives voice to friendly bear Baloo, the cast includes names like Benedict Cumberbatch, Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, and Indian-American child actor Rohan Chand as Mowgli. She added: “It is Andy and I am super excited.”
Slumdog breakout Pinto was in 2011’s Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes with Serkis who is directing Jungle Book from a script by Callie Kloves. He’s also producing with Steve Kloves and Jonathan Cavendish. Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, and Benedict Cumberbatch feature in the voice cast.
While there is still time for “Jungle Book: Origins” to hit the screens, Freida is back on the screen with her next project, Terrence Malick’s film “Knight of Cups” opposite Hollywood’s “The Dark Knight” Bale. The film hit the screens in the US last week.
The actress told Entertainment Tonight that she’s very excited about the role. “I read The Jungle Book and watched the TV series in India growing up, and for me, to finally be part of the film that reminds me so much of my childhood is just amazing,” she said.
“It’s one of those films that I feel, no matter what age group you are, you’re going to enjoy that film, and I feel like it’s been a while since I’ve done something like that, because most of my films have not been good enough for children. A little too intense, so I’m very happy to finally be doing a film that can be [watched by kids].”