I never left my sexy image: Neha Dhupia

Q: Tell us about your character in 'Ek Chalis Ki Last Local'?
A: I play a character named Madhu. She is the girl who is coming back from her friend's engagement and she misses her last local. She has to go to Vikhorli and tries desperately hard to do so.

Here at the station she meets Nilesh, who works in a call centre and has also missed his last local. The story is about how they earn two and a half crore in two and a half hours.

Q: So do you people divide the money?
A: (Laughs aloud) We will do that in the sequel. Don't take it seriously there is nothing planned yet.

Q: You had earlier said that you had a dream of traveling in the locals so you took up this film?
A: I have! I don't see a connection between my dream and the film. I have traveled a lot on trains. Actually we lived in Delhi and the rest of our family lived in Kerala.

So I used to travel a lot between the two places. As far as the locals are concerned, I came to Mumbai after I was crowned Miss India. So I did not have to travel on trains.

Q: The locals are the lifeline of Mumbai and you sure would have understood it by now. What else did you learn about Mumbai?
A: I'm glad you asked me this question. I have learnt a lot about Mumbai as a city. There were lots of good and bad. There was an incident when we were shooting at Bhayandar in the middle of the night and there was a huge crowd who was pelting stones at us because we were not meeting them.

It was overwhelming for me but we had a job to finish before sunrise and could not give them so much time. There was a day we were shooting in a chawl and this is the place where it is like a maze, one you get in but cannot come out.

So we had a lot of difficulty since it was getting hot and mucky and we needed tea. The people there were helping us out in the wee hours of the morning. There was no reason for them to do that but it showed the spirit of Mumbai, the helping attitude for the people.

Q: How was your experience in the chawls?
A: When I saw the chawls, I was shocked. I realized that even after making money why people want to come back to the place. There is so much warmth there. Every one knows everyone and ready to help. I saw six people sleeping in a row in a small house! The more I know the more I learn, the more I discover, the more I want to stay in the city.

Q: Do you think that we ignore this aspect of Mumbai?
A: See I think a lot of us know about this part of Mumbai. It is a matter of convenience. Ignoring is not something that one does out of choice.

There is so much that I can voice today but tomorrow I get busy with my work and I might just end up ignoring that. It is convenient for me because I would do what I'm supposed to do rather than take up a cause. But it is very important that people in certain positions should take up that cause.

Had it been within my capacity, I would have done it. It is not that people don't think about it. People do lot of social work but it is not getting channelized in the right direction.

Q: How do you get attracted to Abhay in the movie?
A: Why? Are you saying that he is not attractive (Laughs)? Wait till I tell him. See it is a situation where we are alone and there is no distraction. It was just he and me. So in such situations one can get attracted to someone in jut fifteen minutes.

Q: Is there any situation where he fights and saves you from goons?
A: No, in fact I was the one who was fighting and saving him (Laughs aloud). Ask the director, he has written the script!

Q: What homework did you have to undergo?
A: It was challenging for me. Of course Sanjay helped me a lot with everything. I have not stayed in Mumbai and so I had to work on my accent. I had to change my Delhi ka Hindi to Mumbaiya Hindi. I had to learn the mannerisms of Madhu because she is different from me. There were times when Sanjay was spoon-feeding me. We had a week-long workshop which was very exciting.

Q: How was the experience with Sanjay?
A: Sanjay is a pretty young man and the entire unit was young and energetic. He is only 28 and the senior most person on the floor. There was no hierarchy that we were following and enjoyed our work.

Q: How do you rate this film of yours?
A: I can't honestly compare this film to any other film because I have not done anything like this before. It is a clich when somebody says 'Oh this is something different, its mind blowing' and things like that. But I cannot do that. It is for you to decide. My job is to do a good work and do my best. And from my side I cannot compare my work or any other film made in the past.

Q: Tell us about your look.
A: Well I was very bored of wearing the same costume everyday. There is only one costume but in that I had to break the monotony by knocking off the ear ring, change the style of the dupatta, and open the hair out just to look different. It is Indian look but a grungy Indian look. I have never had this look before. We have tried to make the character look as convincing as possible.

Q: What re you upcoming projects?
A: There is 'Shootout at Lokhandwala' where I'm opposite Sanjay Dutt, 'Mithiya' with Naseer Saab and Ranveer Shourie, 'Kuch Love Kuch Drama' where I play Rajpal Yadav's wife. Here my character's name is Shanti but I actually do not have any shanti in life and Rajpal's name is Santosh and he does not have that too.

Q: You had a sex image which you have changed. Has it affected your career?
A: No, it has not affected anything; it has just made me better. It wasn't a sort of departure from the sex symbol and landing into doing something else. The fact is that as long as work has taken off for me I'm happy.

You know people are recognizing me as somebody who does different things as an actress and who is involved in playing her character 100%. And I'm enjoying that.

Honestly, today I'm a lot more confident and talented than what I was yesterday and as long as every day is better at work, whether it is for you or for me, we are going to be happy. (SAMPURN)