She had almost been written off as just another sultry siren. But life hasn’t been the same for Bipasha Basu since her last two releases ? Boney Kapoor’s No Entry and Suneel Darshan’s Barsaat. It’s been a second coming of sorts for the actress who now says she’ll only work with bigger banners, accomplished directors and famous co-stars.

Industry expert Taran Adarsh sees a new Bipasha today. “Her performance in No Entry, 2005’s biggest hit, was very enjoyable. I saw her first in Jism. Then I went to watch Ajnabee for the sake of Abbas-Mastan and not for any of the actors. The one thing I carried back home was not Bipasha’s sex appeal, but her performance. Since then she’s definitely worked on the way she looks. Professionally she is doing well in choosing the right projects so much so that she’s in the ‘A’ bracket of Bollywood actresses,” says Adarsh.

“Even a donkey learns here. With each passing phase I am learning a lot. It’s a new phase in my career. I want to work with people who are known for their work, and established actors, because I’ve worked with newcomers a lot. I’ve done performance-oriented roles in Madhoshi, Chehra and Rakht, which have gone unnoticed because the producers did not promote the films well. No more small banners for me,” says the 26-year-old actress.

It was also about time to add meat to her glamorous image. So when Prakash Jha offered her a role in his hard-hitting film Apaharan, revolving around the theme of frequent kidnappings in Bihar, she didn’t think twice. Serious cinema of this kind would be a first for Bipasha. “There are only a few directors who make real films that aren’t rip-offs, inspired ones or take-offs. Prakash Jha is one of them. My one and only reason for doing Apaharan is him. I also loved his film Gangaajal,” she says.

Shot in Satara, Maharashtra, where Jha has shot most of his movies (Gangaajal, Mrityudand, Rahul) the city represents modern day Bihar. “Apaharan isn’t just about the kidnapping of people ? it’s a kidnapping of society and morality too. While doing the film, I realised that kidnapping has become a cottage industry in Bihar. It is a film for the youth to see and find out about what’s happening in our country,” she says.

Could she play a small town girl? It was this that intrigued the sensuous Bengali belle who hadn’t done such a role previously. She saw it as a chance to add another facet to her glamorous personality. It’s a de-glamourised look that the actress sports, wearing simple salwar-kurtas and jeans and kurtas, to bring alive the character of a medical student from a small town. Fitting into the role wasn’t much of a hitch, for in her personal life, Bipasha claims to give her make-up kit a miss except for a touch of kajal.

“The best part was that I was able to get ready in 10 minutes! Even on the days I was running late, I managed my early morning schedules very well,” she laughs.

Bipasha’s co-stars in the film are Ajay Devgan and Nana Patekar. While she didn’t have a scene with Patekar, her experience with Devgan brings a smile to her face. “I will never forget the kind of welcome I got on my first day of shooting. I was late by 10 minutes and was getting frantic calls. As soon as I reached the spot, I heard a lot of band bajaa and someone came to garland me. From that time onwards, the band bajaa followed me all over the place and one weird person wouldn’t leave my side. Then I saw Prakash Jha, Ajay and the others grinning. Ajay had planned it and Prakash was in the supporting cast,” she grins. That was not the end of it ? Bipasha captured it all on her handycam.

The cast got up to other antics while shooting. One day, Devgan offered the crew bhang-laced pedas. Later when Bipasha’s boyfriend John Abraham brought Bengali sweets, no one dared to touch them. “It took a lot of coaxing from us before they touched the sweets and the mishti-doi,” she recalls.

Dressed in a leather jacket teamed with a Mango top and a pair of jeans, the actress is sporting the unmade look. She loves accessories though, and wears chunky bracelets on her wrist with ?lan. “I’ve even accessorised my cell phone. It has trinkets hanging from it along with a pink pooch that makes it easy for me to yank out from my bag, which is usually choc-full of stuff. And I love the sound they make,” she says shaking her cell phone to tinkling effect. It’s time to relax for the actress who otherwise has a busy year ahead with a number of big projects.

A look at her to-do list reveals her new ‘established names only’ resolve ? Satish Kaushik’s Phir Hera Pheri, Dhoom 2, John Matthew Mathan’s Shikhar, Madhur Bhandarkar’s Corporate, a cameo in Raj Kanwar’s Hum Ko Deewana Kar Gaye and Rituparno Ghosh’s next Bengali film.

“I’ve been busy since the age of 17. It’s when your films start doing well that people like to say that you are busy. We are still putting hard work into films that don’t do well. But yes, success is a different thing. A Friday definitely changes a lot of things for us actors,” says Bipasha.

Putting aside her trademark seductive roles in steamy flicks like Ajnabee, Raaz and Jism, the dusky beauty has tried to add variety to her on-screen image. She’s played a cop who falls in love with a criminal in Gunaah, a college girl in Aetbaar, a schizophrenic in Madhoshi and a doting wife in Barsaat. As she gears up for the release of Phir Hera Pheri (the sequel to Hera Pheri), she confesses to be at ease with the comic genre.

“I’ve done a comic role before in No Entry. It’s not my first time. Yet holding my own against the likes of Paresh Rawal, Suniel Shetty and Akshay Kumar was tough. We hardly shot for a few days, yet it seemed like we’d been shooting for aeons,” she says.

The film Shikhar sees Bipasha as a supermodel, while in Corporate she dons the cap of an ambitious entrepreneur. Then there’s Dhoom 2, the cast of which was an exciting proposition in itself. If there’s Hrithik and Abhishek, then there’s Aishwarya and Bipasha pitted against each other for the very first time. “I’d like to see how I look with Ash on screen. We are very different people and the kind of films we’ve done are different too,” she says.

Bipasha balances out a hectic life on the sets with long drives, eating out, working out, spending time with family, friends and John, and her favourite past-time, playing with her pet Chihuahua. “By the way, Poshto just saw his first film ? Apaharan,” she laughs fondly.

The girl who started out wanting to be a doctor till her rat dissection classes made her change her mind, has certainly come a long way. She participated in the Godrej Cinthol Supermodel contest in 1996. “I won and the rest is history,” she says. She went to the Ford modelling agency in New York and returned after some time to work in Mumbai. Thus followed a month-long stint in Paris. “I thought it was better to have fame and money in India rather than just earn money abroad,” reminisces Bipasha.

And there are no regrets that the 5’8” actress has except for not finishing her education. She says, “At 17, I was seeing the world and making my own money. But I’ve done what I wanted to do. I’ve never bent under any pressure. I am proud of myself.”

Photograph by Jagan Negi