"The film is about being 18, being young, and being told what to do as a girl as opposed to doing what you want to do," says "Bend it Like Beckham" director Gurinder Chadha, keeping one eye on the monitor as one of the film's footballing scenes is caught on the camera before us. "Football is a complete allegory for my life. There's a lot of my childhood here and certainly my relationship with my parents, and particularly my dad in terms of me always wanting to do something different to what was expected of me."
We're chatting on a crisp, bright day in a South London park, on the penultimate day of shooting on the director's third film, a charming, good-natured comedy about the trials of a young Anglo-Indian girl trying to make it as a female footballer, despite the disapproval of her Sikh parents.
The project's genesis was back in Euro 96, when Gareth Southgate's limp penalty kick broke the nation's footballing heart. "I came out of the pub and there were grown men sitting on the pavements crying," recalls Chadha, "I just thought, Wow, wouldn't it be great to take this big, male, testosterone-filled world that's grabbed the nation and stick an Indian girl right at the heart of it?"
The girl in question is Parminder Nagra, a hugely talented stage actress who makes her film debut here, and ably carries Chadha's movie. Sitting in her decidedly non-glam trailer (this is a small Brit flick, after all), in the team strip of Hounslow Harriers, she's tentative about her chances of big screen success. But meeting her six months later, after filming has wrapped and she's seen how "Beckham" plays with audiences, she's much happier. "Seeing it, I came out with a big grin on my face," she says, "and I couldn't wipe it." Audiences will soon know what she means.
