I'm ready for Ranbir: Bipasha

By Subhash K Jha

What's with Bipasha Basu and period films? They never seem to come together.

Five years ago Bipasha was actually supposed to start her career with a Mughal costume drama J. P. Dutta's Aakhri Mughal opposite Abhishek Bachchan. The project never took off.

Her newest period project is Raj Kumar Santoshi's Ashok.

Bipasha is hopeful that Ashok will take off on schedule. "I'm really excited about doing the costume drama. To go back in time and recreate an era and character are challenging.

And the character of Tishayraksha is certainly not uni-dimensional. I'm in the entire film. The narrative is so captivating.

I think Raj Santoshi is a great visionary. Look at the performances he gets out of his actors! And to cast someone like me who otherwise has such a contemporary image in the Mauryan era requires guts. "

Ashok is Bipasha's only chance so far to do costume drama. Earlier there was Rituparno Ghosh's Draupadi where the director was very keen to cast Bipasha as the fabled queen of the pandavas.

Sighs Bipasha, "Madhur Bhandarkar, Rituparno Ghosh, Raj Santoshi… these are women's directors I've always wanted to work with. I've worked with two of them. Now hopefully I'll be working with the third. "

Incidentally Rituparno Ghosh's Sab Charitra Kalpunik needn't have been Bipasha's first Bengali film. A few years ago she was offered Buddhdeb Dasgupta's Kaal Purush

"Yes," Bipasha recalls the project. "But you've to be in-sync with the person you work with. And I don't know much about the Bengali film industry. With Ritu the comfort level has grown over time. Speaking Bengali wasn't a problem, though I think in English and not in Bengali. "

Another costume drama on the anvil is Ben Kingsley's Taj Mahal project.

Bipasha sighs, "Again that will take some time. It's again an exciting film. I'll be transported into another era. My entire body language has to change.

I'm looking forward to working with Ben. He has been around for decades, doing so many kinds of amazing films. In person, he's so wonderful.

I met him for the first time when we happened to be on the same flight once. He's so full of life, so much fun. He made me roll with laughter.

There's never a serious moment when he's around. It's so uncanny that we both were hosting a Taj Mahal project (The 7 Wonders) in Lisbon when he talked about doing a Taj Mahal film with me. "

Says Bipasha, "I'm dying to go back in time. For now I'm doing only one film. And that's very very modern. The new Yashraj production directed by Siddharth Anand with Ranbir Kapoor.

Though there are other leading ladies in the film believe me, I'm confident I'll be very strongly noticed. Every segment with different girls is very interesting. "