Like all your other films, Ek Paheli Leela is solely being promoted as a Sunny Leone film. Feel the pressure much?
(Laughs) It’s so much pressure… believe me, it’s so much pressure. The promo, once it hit YouTube, I believe we got a million hits a day for about 10 days! I feel great that directors and producers have so much faith in me, but it definitely puts me in a spot often because I have to work twice as hard to meet expectations. With this film, we have so many actors… Rajneesh (Duggall) and Jas (Arora) and Mohit (Ahlawat). So, when people watch this film, they will also appreciate the film for all these guys. I would like to say that this film is a ‘community effort’ (laughs), rather than just me. 

Leela is a period film which has you playing multiple roles. Is this the most you have experimented as an actor so far?

What attracted me the most was the past look of Leela. Being able to be something like that really tested me, but I had some really great people working to help me. I play a village girl and till now, I have only played this oomphy urban woman. The biggest challenge was that while I managed to look physically like Leela quite easily, I also had to become her. I had to learn pages and pages of Rajasthani dialogues. I memorised the dialogues, but to get Leela’s body language into the dialogue was tough. Leela is this really irreverent woman and to become that was a challenge. She doesn’t care about what people think about her. I had to take Sunny Leone out of my system and just become Leela. I have watched the film once, but I think I have to watch it again just to see how I have done. But the first watch tells me that I think I did okay! (Laughs)

What has this film taught you?

This film has been a classroom for me. I didn’t have an easy time shooting it… it was physically hard and emotionally very demanding. I had to put in 16-17 hours while others would work 12 hours! It took me hours to put on the make-up and so I would be up at 4am, while the others would still be sleeping. Then after pack-up, while everyone else would chill, I would spend hours just scrubbing Leela off my body! At the end of the day, I would be so exhausted… hopefully that doesn’t show on camera! It’s not been peaches and roses, but all these films, and specially this, have taught me what I can do as an actor and what I can’t do… how to work as a character that’s so different from me and how to work in diverse weather… for this film we went from 50 degrees in Rajasthan to 10 degrees in London. It was crazy. 

Would days like these make you regret becoming an actress?

I have never once said in these four years that I can’t do this. I will only quit the day I break every single bone in my body! Otherwise I am here to stay (laughs). There’s nothing that’s going to stop me ever from being an actor.

Is Sunny a spontaneous actor or do you put in a lot of rehearsal time?

I do spend a lot of time with my dialogues. I have a hard time with spontaneous acting that involves a lot of dialogues. I am still struggling with Hindi. When I get on set, I give my director exactly what he wants. If big dialogues are not thrown at me suddenly, then I would like to believe that I am an improv actor. 

Finally, is it true that your husband Daniel has a cameo in Leela?

Yes! In the film, I get tricked to go to Rajasthan and he’s the pilot who flies me there. We have a very cute scene together. I think when women will watch that scene, they will feel that Daniel looks very hot in the uniform (smiles). 
All these years, he’s been protecting me… now I will be protecting him from all the girls! (Laughs)

Priyanka Roy