The gritty New Yorker with a yen for travel returns to her roots and reveals her idea of a perfect date, her fondness for 'Hinglish', doing an action film, and kicking some serious butt in Harper's Bazaar January 2012 issue!
Nargis, of the never-ending legs, is just one movie old. Yet she combines the zest of a teenager with the wisdom of a sage. Here, in the sunny, paradaisical, and dramatic setting of the Maldives, she's a water-baby, or perhaps a sea nymph. It all depends on how you approach her. This native New Yorker is gregarious, and talks a mile-a-minute, yet her street smarts have stood her in good stead. Behind the affable, smiling exterior, lie nerves of steel, and a sense of adventure. "At 13, I had this map and I'd wonder, 'wow look at this place, New Zealand, it's so far away! What's over there?'" she says. That curiosity stuck inside her. So she figured that the best way a person could travel and make money was as a model.
"People would tell me, 'you should be a model, you're so tall' (she's 5'9")." But her Czech mum, who'd tell her stories of how beautiful Europe was, didn't allow her. "She said, 'no, no, no, you can't do it, you're 15!' But later, I found my way out of New York City, into the big, bad world, and did it on my own, ending up here somehow," says Nargis.
Today, she's shooting in Asia's smallest country, a scattering of white-sanded islands in pristine, aqua waters. "It's awe-inspiring; I feel like I'm in the middle of nowhere," she says. Her favourite part of the Four Seasons Maldives at Kuda Huraa is the children's activities section. She's also thrilled about shooting with turtles, something that the Bazaar team has captured in this shoot.