Parminder Nagra hasn't ruled out reprising her role in a Bend It Like Beckham sequel. The actress, who starred as football-playing 18-year-old Jess alongside Keira Knightley's Juliette in the feel-good 2002 film, said she would have to see the script.
The romantic sports comedy follows Indian teen Jess as she dreams of becoming a professional football player, despite the expectations of her traditional Punjabi family: to get a job as a lawyer and settle down with a suitable husband.
© Film Council / Lions GateSitting down with HELLO! ahead of her returning role in ITV's DI Ray, Parminder said "I don't know" when asked whether she'd star in a second film. "Sometimes I feel like when someone's made a film, you kind of go, that was that moment and it probably should just be left alone because then the expectation for whatever the sequel is," explained the actress.
Pondering where her character would be 20 years on, she asked: "What I would like come back as, a coach? What would I be? I couldn't be playing football for the women's team. I'm too old for that."
© Film Council / Lions GateWhen asked if she'd consider reprising her role if she saw a script, Parminder said: " I'd have to see," before adding: "Well, to be honest with you, the first time [director Gurinder Chadha] brought the script when I was doing a theatre in Hammersmith, she said, 'I've got this script with this girl playing football' and I thought, 'Who would want to watch a film about this girl playing football?'
"I said that then and look what happened. It was the first Western film to be shown on North Korea television, it was nuts. So, you know, I eat my words now, right? So I don't know. Maybe.
"22 years, man. We'll see," she added.
© Film Council / Lions GateParminder's comments come after director Gurinder revealed that she had started to "percolate an idea" for a sequel.
"I never really wanted to make a sequel to the film, because I just thought the way Parminder and Keira played it, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Archie Panjabi, I could never really follow that up and create that same magic in the same way," she told Metro.co.uk in October last year.
"But with the recent success of football, I just feel like I'm starting to percolate an idea for a possible sequel of some kind."
© Justin SleeThe film marked Parminder's big break into acting and from there, she went on to star in the US medical drama ER, The Blacklist, Maternal, and of course, DI Ray, which returned to screens on Sunday night with its second season.
The crime series picks up two months after the events of season one, which saw DI Ray suspended from the police after solving the murder of Imran Aziz and discovering that her fiancé Martyn was a corrupt police officer.
On where we find Rachita in the new episodes, Parminder said the detective is emotionally "a bit battered and bruised". "Being called back into work, she's not very trusting of anybody because of what's happened," explained the star. "And what is this going to look like? I think that's how it starts for her and making sure that she's got her eye on the ball, that it's about the work and nothing else."
© Justin SleeAs for her love life, writer and creator Maya Sondhi, who joined Parminder in an interview with HELLO!, said Rachita is "in no place for anything complicated" as she seeks out casual relationships. "It's kind of working it out of your system," explained Maya. "I did do some research into post-traumatic stress or grief, and [among] a lot of things that happen is casual sex because you just want to feel something."
DI Ray series two is available to stream on ITVX.
