Lisa Ray Still Feels Haunted By The Thought Of Being Labelled A ‘Sex Symbol At The Age Of 16’

Indo Canadian actress Lisa Ray who battled cancer for a while recently released her memoir “Close to the Bone”. Lisa had become an overnight sensation and debuted in Bollywood opposite Aftab Shivdasani in the 2001 movie Kasoor and she also appeared in many international movies like Water, I Can't Think Straight, Let the Game Begin, etc. In a recent interview with PTI, the actress opened up about how it haunted her when she was labelled as a sex symbol at the young age of 16.

Said Lisa, "I hate to be labelled and put into boxes but I had to deal with it since a young age because I was a sex symbol at the age of 16. It was completely unanticipated. To suddenly become this figure for an entire nation and on top of that, to look much older that has haunted me my entire life up until now."

Lisa, who overcame multiple myeloma, a cancer of the white blood cells says that "A lot of people will understand how I have this ambivalent relationship with my career, how I am an accidental actress, how I always had one foot in and one foot out of it and how I believe that I have been underestimated only because of the way I look. Although, I don't believe they shouldn't be at odds with each other.” The actress states that her book is not just a cancer memoir because it gives a glimpse into her journey right from beginning.

Lisa said that while she was at the peak of her career, she was grappling through a personal tragedy as her mother had met with an accident, leaving her wheelchair-bound. She said, "I understood at a very young age - I was 16 then - that all the aspects that you call success -- name, fame and money -- they don't solve the questions of the soul. So, my ambitions became different. My goal wasn't to become famous. That explains a lot of my choices, all the projects I said no to because I really understood that my answers were not waiting at the end of it.”

While talking about her memoir, she said, "I do cover my cancer experiences but that come much later. Having said that, cancer was the launching pad for writing this memoir because initially that's why I was approached to write this.”

And then she later concluded by saying, "When I sat down and thought about it, I realised that I couldn't write about my disease in isolation from the rest of my life because everything is connected with what came before.”