Prominent Indian director Mira Nair describes film star Tabu as a talented actress with the ability to pull off portraying a character who ages in her new film "The Namesake.''

Tabu, a popular 35-year-old actress who uses one name, plays a young Indian immigrant bride who joins her husband in the United States, then a mother dealing with living in a foreign country, and finally a widow in her adopted country.

"Tabu listens acutely. The whole world, life itself is reflected in her eyes,'' Nair said in an interview published Thursday in DNA newspaper. "That's why I cast her as Ashima, who has to be the dewdrop bride at 21 and have the gravitas of a widow at 50.''

The movie, to be released on Friday, is based on a novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning Indian-born American author Jhumpa Lahiri and is about an Indian family's assimilation into American culture.

Tabu, widely considered one of India's most talented Indian actresses, has won several national awards and has acted in more than 50 movies since debuting in the early 1990s.