Bipasha

Winning the Ford Supermodel Contest, as a teenager was quite a switch from being a tomboy!It is true that I was a tomboy. I come from a middle class family and my dad is an engineer. I was really my parents’ pet, obedient and an ace student. In fact, if my dad has any regrets, it is that I did not pursue an academic career, because I was so good in studies, but my life took a different turn when I got into modeling. I loved traveling around the world and enjoyed my independence, and the money that came with it, some thing a normal college-going girl does not get to do. It started for me when I was only 17.Nevertheless, you decided to quit international modeling because you were homesick and felt you would not make it, when on the contrary the dusky look is so in nowadays. When I went abroad, it was 1997 and India was not big on the international map then. Today everything about India is considered exotic, but at that time it was not so. I did a lot of work, but I knew I could not stay. Everything is very professional abroad, but it is a very hectic and lonely life. I met many girls from different parts of the world, got to learn a lot and became more responsible as I saw them making the wrong choices all the time, things I had not seen before, like people doing drugs and not respecting themselves. Eventually it is all about you, and all up to you. Your parents can only teach you this much, but it is you who has to make the right decision. I am very close to my parents and they know everything about me. My mother was always supportive and proud of me, but for my academician father it took a year to understand what I was doing and that I was serious about it.So after making it big on the domestic modeling scene, you finally agreed to give films a shot. You turned down offers for a couple of years, but eventually started with a murder mystery - a role with negative shades in Ajnabee. You did look very much like Sophia Loren, though it was funny seeing you look very sultry but mouth an inane dialogue like “Mera Jism dekho” (look at my body) to Bobby Deol. It wasn’t sultry in the least! Do you know to this day Bobby can get me on that line? It was the worst scene of my life. Even in English, I would not be able to say a ridiculous line like “look at my body,” but to say it in Hindi in front of all that crew, to a stranger especially when you are acting in a film for the first time in your life and I had no clue about acting. It’s been two and a half three years, and I am still tortured with that line.How easy was it to switch from modeling to acting? It was a very strange feeling because, the world of modeling is so different and a 90-man film unit behaves differently. I had to start from scratch, but I met a fabulous bunch of people, who helped. The first shot I had in Ajnabee was with Kareena Kapoor discussing our life. I was nervous, but the director told me to be natural, and since then in every film, I have done just that. I believe in following the character I am playing to a T and to be natural and understated. I believe less is best. It doesn’t matter what background you come from, if you are open minded and in touch with your emotions and yourself, you will always act well, because after all acting is nothing but a display of emotions and how you really feel. The only thing different is that modeling drills into you a need to look good all the times, in acting you have to forget that aspect totally, because you may not always play a glamorous character. The first time I saw myself on the screen I didn’t want to see myself again. It was a shock and I hated everything. At that time I was just parroting my lines, but now I am more focused, and though I am not the best actress around, I think I have improved with each film.I heard Paul McCartney saw the film and was bowled over by you? Yes, I was in Goa and I get a call in the middle of night and I say who is this? My friends fool around with me all the time and Dino Morea had made that call once and I said stop fooling around, but it was indeed Paul McCartney and that was very sweet.What kind of movies have had an impact on you?Godfather is an all-time favourite. If I were a man, I'd love to have played the godfather. I've seen the movie so many times. Another favourite is Masoom. I love movies that deal with human emotions, movies with which you can identify.