Mira Nair is all praise for Hillary Swank

It has been a heartbreaking time for Mira Nair. Shantaram with Johnny Depp and Mr Bachchan didn't take off. "And in September when I was offered Amelia, I said no because I was busy with Shantaram. Then Shantaram fell apart. They came back to me with Amelia in January. I never thought I'd be able to switch from my Mumbai mood for Shantaram to this project, having spent one year flying in and out of Mumbai for Shantaram. But then you know these things happen."

Mira Nair has now almost wrapped up her bio-pic on Amelia Earhart called Amelia with Hillary Swank in the lead. "She's amazing!" sighs Mira. "A fantastic actress. She has an uncanny resemblance to the original character. I mean she could've been Amelia Earhart. I didn't pick her. The producers picked her. The project came to me with her already on broad."

"We've three more weeks to shoot in South Africa. But before that, I'm taking two weeks off to go home", Mira says from London on Thursday afternoon.

She has also completed a 6-minute film on love starring Natalie Portman and Irrfan Khan called Kosher Vegetarian. "It's part of a series on love called New York I Love You. And it's got twelve directors holding forth on love. The only pre-condition was, it must not exceed six minutes. I had this wonderful idea. Irrfan and Natalie create magic. It's a nice vigorous exercise to create a story in so little time. But we had no choice. It had to be six minutes. I finished it in February and moved to the badaa picture."

Amelia is Mira's biggest film to date. "A true epic in scope. We're shooting around the world. It's about Amelia Eahart who pretty much pioneered aviatrix. It starts in the earlier years of aviation. My film goes from the 1920s to 1937 when she did her final flight around the world. And ultimately disappeared."