There is a scene in the film Top Gun: Maverick when Tom Cruise, who plays a rebellious naval aviator, crashes the Darkstar―a fictional prototype of a hypersonic jet―in the middle of nowhere. Searching for some sign of civilisation, he finally chances upon a small-town diner. Flustered and dishevelled, he walks up to the counter in his burnt uniform, downs a glass of water and asks, “Where am I?” The boy seated next to him stares at him in awe and replies, “Earth”. It is a hilarious scene, but in a way it encapsulates the gulf between us ordinary mortals and the celebrities we hold in awe. For us, they are otherworldly beings, a sub-set of humanity that is far removed from the dust and grime of everyday realities, perpetually in a state of airbrushed perfection. I mean, can you imagine Alia Bhatt with acne?
They live in a la-la land of Pradas, private jets and penthouses. It is like they pick relationships out of a menu card. Jennifer Aniston for breakfast, Angelina Jolie for lunch and Ines de Ramon for dinner. (What’s for dessert, Brad?) They have bodies that would put a Greek goddess to shame. And if they’ve got ’em, they will flaunt ’em. Many of their clothes (or lack thereof) make the proverbial Emperor look overdressed. Some have conquered alien lands. When a reporter asked Mike Tyson what was next for him after he was defeated by Lennox Lewis, he replied, “I don’t know. I guess I’m gonna fade into Bolivian.” Others speak an alien tongue. Does anyone know what Brooke Shields meant when she said, “Smoking kills. If you’re killed, you’ve lost a very important part of your life.” Huh?
They function according to the Unwritten Code of Celeb-verse, and hence they can get away with things that would get the rest of us incarcerated, mentally evaluated or, if you’re in America, deported. That’s why no one raised an eyebrow when Margaret Atwood, in the middle of an interview, grabbed the interviewer’s hand and started reading it. “You’re quite stubborn,” she said. “You don’t care about wallpaper, Molly.” That’s why you never get into an argument with Angelina Jolie. She might just decide to shoot daggers at you. Literally; she owns a dagger collection. Paris Hilton gets a kick out of hunting frogs? Completely normal. Pierce Brosnan is a fire breather on the side? Very hot. Jack White loves upholstering furniture? Here’s my sofa, Jack. Tom Cruise and Will Smith have a thing for playing with pointy objects (aka fencing)? Bring it on. Amitabh Bachchan wears two wrist-watches set to different times when his family is abroad? Genius.
When it comes to their hobbies, celebrities can be classified into two: the collectors and the chameleons. The collectors, as the name suggests, like to collect. Their items of interest cover a broad spectrum. It might be as mundane as saris (Mahua Moitra), shoes (Priyanka Chopra) and soaps (Salman Khan), or as morbid as snakes (Sushmita Sen; she had a python as a pet), insects (Claudia Schiffer) and taxidermy (Amanda Seyfried).
Then there are the chameleons. These are the ones who hide behind their hobbies (sometimes, like in the case of M.S. Dhoni, quite literally, as his obsession with the army made him travel around in camouflage pants, with camouflage luggage). Looking at them, you would never guess what they were into. Who would think that Whoopi Goldberg worked as a morgue beautician or Christopher Walken as a lion tamer. Who would guess that Johnny Depp has a thing for Barbie dolls or Coldplay’s Chris Martin, for sewing?
But in every case, their hobbies might say more about them than all their nose jobs, wardrobe malfunctions and Instagram posts put together. There is a scene in the film Bridget Jones’s Diary when Bridget, played by Renee Zellweger, is asked why she and other single women her age are far more likely to be unmarried than women of the past. “It doesn’t help that underneath our clothes, our entire bodies are covered in scales,” she quips. Her point, of course, is that single women are as normal as the rest of them. Could the same be true of celebrities? Could it be that underneath their clothes, they are not fashioned out of fairy dust? That, despite appearances, they might not actually wake up in the mornings with hair and makeup in place? That they, too, like the rest of us, like to drown their sorrows in a tub of Baskin Robbins or by getting a pedicure or a pair of designer shoes? Or, in the case of Priyanka Chopra, 80 pairs?