Actor Freida Pinto said India has changed in many beautiful ways since her debut in the Oscar-winning British film Slumdog Millionaire in 2008. Her core point: Indian screens now show more women who are not just duty-bound or puritanical. She made the remarks to PTI at the launch of the 2027 Pirelli Calendar in New Delhi on Friday.

Pinto is one of nine prominent Indian women featured in the calendar. She shares the pages with actor Aditi Rao Hydari, musician Anoushka Shankar, poet Rupi Kaur, model Lakshmi Menon and television host Padma Lakshmi. The calendar puts India at the centre of the project for the first time in its history.

A shift toward imperfect women on screen

Pinto said the representation of women in film and television has changed over the last nearly 20 years. She singled out one change as especially welcome: audiences can now see all kinds of women, including those with complexities and flaws.

“I’m more interested in the things that are not perfect. The things that are perfect are boring and are not relatable,” Pinto said at the launch.

That line sums up her argument. Pinto is not asking for better-behaved heroines. She wants characters who carry contradictions, the kind audiences recognise from their own lives. Debates about flawed female leads tend to split viewers between those who want aspirational figures and those who want messy, honest ones. Pinto has chosen a side, and she made it without naming a single film.

She also pointed to the actors’ own history. Pinto is known for Hollywood hits such as Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Immortals and Woody Allen’s You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. She has watched Indian and global cinema change around her across two decades, and she used that vantage point to describe what she wants next.

What she wants from Indian creativity

Pinto said she hopes to see “an explosion of creativity” in India. She pointed to the country’s youth, whom she described as “so forthcoming with ideas and the desire for change.” Her hope is simple and direct: that creative ideas keep coming and are not held back.

“Ideas lead to a lot of creativity. And I hope we see a lot more of that. I hope it doesn’t get stunted. I hope it doesn’t get shunned or suppressed. I hope we just see it explode,” she said.

That warning about suppression matters in a debate where representation often depends on who gets funded, cast and shown. Pinto did not go into specifics. Her words, though, make clear which way she wants the industry to move.

Working with Solve Sundsbo

Pinto posed in a dark pink dress under a flower-laden bougainvillea for photographer Solve Sundsbo. She said she was happy to be part of his vision, and she praised how he worked with the women in front of his camera.

According to Pinto, Sundsbo never arrived with a preconceived idea of what India or Indian women should look like. He came in after the fittings were done and the clothes had been chosen, then shot the women in what they felt comfortable wearing and doing.

“So, there was no real put-us-in-a-box kind of a situation that ever happened. It was very fluid and flowy and always with conversations like, ‘does this feel good? How does this feel?’” she said. She added that she felt each photograph carried a little of herself.

How the calendar came together

The 2027 Pirelli Calendar features works by photographers Raghu Rai, Avani Rai and Solve Sundsbo. The shoot ran between May and September. The calendar comes as a box set with two separate pockets and contains 36 photographs in total: 18 by Sundsbo and 18 from the Rai project.

The launch took place on Friday in New Delhi. The calendar stands out for placing India at its centre for the first time, a change that sits alongside Pinto’s argument about who gets seen on the page and on screen.

What comes next for Pinto

Pinto will next appear in Unaccustomed Earth, an eight-episode series inspired by Jhumpa Lahiri’s 2008 short-story collection. Siddharth also stars in the series, which premieres on Netflix on December 17.

For a actor who began her career with a global awards-season hit, the new project fits the pattern Pinto described at the launch. She is drawn to material where people are not perfect, and where the characters have room to be difficult, uncertain and real. Whether Indian cinema follows her lead will be watched closely by audiences in India and abroad.