WINFREY: This is the first time they have ever sat down together for a television interview. All the way from Mumbai, India, welcome Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan. [APPLAUSE] WINFREY: Welcome back. Good to see you again. Oh, so good to see you again. Good to see you. ABHISHEK BACHCHAN: How are you? Nice to meet you. WINFREY: Nice to meet you. So nice to meet you. Well. WINFREY: Well, what a pleasure. What a pleasure to have you to together. MR. BACHCHAN: Thank you. WINFREY: You've never done this before. MR. BACHCHAN: No. WINFREY: Never done this before--sat down together. MR. BACHCHAN: We sit together quite often. [LAUGHTER] WINFREY: Sat down together for an interview on national television. So tell me, how did you pop the question to the most beautiful woman in the world? MR. BACHCHAN: I was filming in New York for a movie, and I used to stand on my balcony of my hotel room and wish that one day, you know, wouldn't it be nice if I was together with her, married. So I took her to the very same balcony, and I asked her to marry me. WINFREY: Oh. WINFREY: Yeah, so I understand-- does the wedding go on for, like, a week or so? MR. BACHCHAN: Indian weddings are elaborate. Yes. WINFREY: Yes. MR. BACHCHAN: As a culture, we like to celebrate everything. We're very expressive. MS. RAI: Very festive, absolutely. Yeah. You know. Absolutely. [APPLAUSE] MR. BACHCHAN: Have we got some Indians in the audience? MR. BACHCHAN: There we go. Well done. So, yeah. Our weddings go on for sometimes a week, 10 days, where we have functions every evening and in the day. Yeah. WINFREY: Yeah, and when is the actual ceremony? Is the ceremony at the end or the beginning? MS. RAI: And the end of these days of celebration. Yeah. WINFREY: You then say the vows. MR. BACHCHAN: Oh, yes. There's the ceremonial fire, which we walk around seven times. Traditionally, that's what it is. MS. RAI: And there'll be the priest chanting the prayers. MR. BACHCHAN: And the seven rounds are the vows that you take. WINFREY: Wow. MR. BACHCHAN: So, yeah, at the end of it all, that's what we do. WINFREY: Well, seven rounds, it's hard to get divorced after that. MS. RAI: We don't even try to entertain the thought. WINFREY: Okay. So now you're living with-- the both of you are living with your parents. RAI: Yes. WINFREY: And how does that work? MS. RAI: Go on. Say it. [laugh] MR. BACHCHAN: You live with your family? WINFREY: No. MR. BACHCHAN: How does that work? [APPLAUSE] MS. RAI: It's normal. It's natural to us, absolutely natural to us. WINFREY: It's just that culturally, we're a different culture where we're trying to get the parents out of the house, I think. Yeah, really, and I think that in many parts of the world--like, you know, I go to Africa a lot--that is not normal. It's normal to bring the parents in, to have respect for the elders. MR. BACHCHAN: Yeah. Yeah. MS. RAI: Absolutely. MR. BACHCHAN: Until my grandparents passed away, we used to all live together as well. WINFREY: Really. MR. BACHCHAN: So my father lived with his parents. I live with my parents. MS. RAI: I lived with my parents until we got married, so it's just the most natural thing, and it's wonderful. WINFREY: And it's nice. MR. BACHCHAN: It's very nice. WINFREY: Okay. So when you say you live with your parents, does that mean you actually are having dinner together every night? It's not like they're on one end and you're on another. MS. RAI: No. Absolutely not. MR. BACHCHAN: No. We live under the same roof, and one of the rules in the house set by mom is, if we're all in the city, we have to have one meal a day together. WINFREY: A meal together every day. MS. RAI: Which is great. It's great. WINFREY: Wow. That's fantastic. [APPLAUSE] WINFREY: Well, Ash posed for the cover of "Vogue" India. They call her the most beautiful woman in the world. She's known by that throughout the world. So what's it like being married to the most beautiful woman in the world? MR. BACHCHAN: Oh, it's pleasant on the eyes. [LAUGHTER] MR. BACHCHAN: She's beautiful. It's very nice. WINFREY: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nice to wake up to. MS. RAI: You can see why I married him. MR. BACHCHAN: Yeah. She looks exactly the same. MS. RAI: You can see why I married him. He just makes everything funny, so yeah. MR. BACHCHAN: No. It's true. You wake up in the morning, like, pretty, even in the morning. You know? [LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE] WINFREY: That's great. Oh, now, I heard you've never been kissed on camera. MS. RAI: Go on, baby. [kiss] [laugh] See? [APPLAUSE] WINFREY: So, in Bollywood films, it's not, like, a lot of, you know, that. You wouldn't see a lot of sexual... MR. BACHCHAN: Not a lot of it happens as openly as, say, in the West. It's not a thing about being accepted or not. It's just not required. I don't think the Indian audience feels it's required. To put it this way, I think if we make up a scene, for example, boy meets girl. They fall in love. They want to express their love for each other, so in the West, they will kiss, and, there, they're in love. In India, we break to a song. RAI: We have a song. Immediately. [LAUGHTER] MR. BACHCHAN: Isn't that more interesting? MS. RAI: It's so much fun. MR. BACHCHAN: You know, you have this intimate moment, and then suddenly, snap, cut, you're in the mountains, and you're singing and dancing. It's a lot more interesting. It's a lot more interesting. I'd much rather that. WINFREY: Rather sing. MS. RAI: Yeah. MR. BACHCHAN: Yeah. WINFREY: Okay. So what do you all do on a day off? What would you do? MR. BACHCHAN: We fly to Chicago and come on "Oprah." MS. RAI: On "Oprah." [LAUGHTER] WINFREY: Very good, but do you, like, play sports. Would you be, like, on a Wednesday night playing Scrabble? Would you, you know... MR. BACHCHAN: We don't get much time off, Oprah. WINFREY: You don't get much time off. MS. RAI: Yeah. MR. BACHCHAN: No. Because in India, the working style is different. MR. BACHCHAN: Whereas in the West, I think that the actors pretty much do a film a year or once every two years... WINFREY: Tell me. Tell me how. WINFREY: Yeah. Yeah. MR. BACHCHAN: ...we do about five to six films in a year. A lot of the time, those films are almost shooting simultaneously. She's working on four films. I'm working on four films. We're working on a film together, as well. WINFREY: Mm-hmm. So there isn't a lot of spare time. MR. BACHCHAN: No. MS. RAI: But when we do have spare time, it's just normal time. We just love to hang at home, really spend time with each other, with family, with friends. WINFREY: Okay. So when you all decide to have children, that's going to be an international event. MS. RAI: [laugh] MR. BACHCHAN: I really hope not. MS. RAI: We hope not. WINFREY: No, really. MS. RAI: I hope not, for sure. WINFREY: It's going to be an international event. Do you feel the pressure of that already? MS. RAI: Well, I have been proclaimed pregnant already a couple of times. I'm like, "Okay. Is that a hint?" Because a couple of times as soon as we got married, it's like people keep watching every little bulge, and I'm like, "oh, my god," you know? If you're not in shape, you're pregnant, so there was a lot of that happening. WINFREY: Yeah. This label that the world has given to you-- deservedly so, looking into your eyes-- most beautiful woman in the world, is that pressure? Because if you wake up with a zit or there's a rash on your skin... MS. RAI: I have been to several public events with zits or whatever. I mean, it's normal. It does happen. I'm sure people zoom in and then circle it in the paper. [LAUGHTER] WINFREY: Yeah. MS. RAI: Of course. WINFREY: He's never seen a zit, but I'm just wondering, is there pressure? Is there a special routine that you use for your skin? MS. RAI: No, absolutely not. I just think this is all--it's polite. It's sweet. Thank you for the compliments, but you don't quite sit believing it and taking it that seriously. I'm human, just normal, and you have your days when, you know, things will be great, days when things are not looking that great, but that's okay. WINFREY: Ash, Ash. MS. RAI: It's true. WINFREY: You've never, like, looked in the mirror and said, "Damn." [LAUGHTER] MS. RAI: I have, cross my heart, I have. Yeah. WINFREY: No. I mean, like, "Damn. Yeah. I am really pretty." MS. RAI: Oh, no. No. MS. RAI: Oh, no. No, no, no, no. Oh, no. I go like, "Damn, that doesn't work, but I got to get back on the road." So that does happen. Yeah. WINFREY: But no, really gorgeous. Have you ever seen eyes like this? MS. RAI: Aw. WINFREY: Obviously, you haven't either. No. No. MS. RAI: He's bright. Yeah. He's going to say no.
