Perhaps one of the last things you would expect from Sunny Leone is a book. But hasn’t she been all about surprises from the day she walked into that Bigg Boss house? Sweet Dreams, published by Juggernaut, is a collection of 12 short stories about “intimate encounters”, written by Sunny. t2 met the actress — looking stunning in a bright blue dress — in a suite at the JW Marriott Hotel in Juhu to chat about the book and her five-year journey in Mumbai.

Growing up in Canada and then in the United States was there ever a dream to be a Bollywood star?
(Giggles) No, no not at all. When I was growing up, Bollywood movies in my home was a family event. Mom, Dad picked the movie and put it in. It was pizza night... we sat on the floor in front of the TV and ate. It was the only time we were allowed to eat in the living room, by the way. Other than that it was at the table, every single day (laughs out loud). So Bollywood had always been just that... a family moment for me.

Didn’t you take up the Bigg Boss offer as a stepping stone to a showbiz career in Bombay?
Bigg Boss contacted my husband, Daniel Weber, saying ‘We want Sunny on the show’. I still remember how I reacted when he came to me saying that there was an offer from India’s version of Big Brother. I was like: ‘Are you crazy? I am not going to India... they hate me out there because of the industry I am in!’

How did you know they hated you here in India?
I used to get a lot of hate mail from the Indian community, especially in the early part of my career there, saying all sorts of very, very mean things. I was young and I was extremely traumatised by that situation. 

So what made you say ‘yes’ to Bigg Boss?
Daniel calmed me down. He showed me the presentation that the show’s producers had sent him. I went through it and started researching on the show. I am a little nerdy and I research things and I really look into what I am about to get myself into. And after doing all the research I realised it would be a huge mistake if I didn’t take up the offer. That’s where everything started. It was nothing that I was actively pursuing. It just happened.

Did you also want to tell India who you actually were?
Bigg Boss was the perfect platform to put myself out there. But I didn’t have an agenda going inside the house. The only plan was that if people inside didn’t know who I was, I won’t say anything for a little bit. Because it’s a very natural human reaction to judge somebody based on what they do. Or based on something you’ve heard. Even if it’s true or not true. So I wanted them to know me first-hand.

Was it easy in those initial days in India?
When I was entering the Bigg Boss house, I wanted to cry. It was the first time I was leaving my husband. And I had to say bye and everyone was around and everything was so quick. I felt so heartbroken. And then I had to go into the house and do this silly dance number. Also, during the stay in the house, since you have no contact with the world outside, I had no clue how I was being perceived. I only knew that when I came out.

So you looked at Bigg Boss as a one-off thing?
I just thought that it was going to be the end of it. It was like I do this show, I go back and put the down payment on the house and go back to living in my bubble. I never knew all this was going to happen.

Did you know of Mahesh Bhatt before he approached you for Jism 2?
No. (Laughs) I knew names of a few Bollywood actors. I didn’t know directors, producers. In fact, when he offered me the film during Bigg Boss, I wasn’t even sure whether it was real or not real. Of course I was excited by the idea that someone would want to work with me in a film. Then when I exited the house I realised it was real. Very real (smiles).

What was your initial induction into Bollywood like?
For the first six months, I lived in hotels. I lived in this hotel (JW Marriott). I lived in Novotel. I lived in Hyatt. I lived in all these different places thinking I would just go back and forth. It was my first movie and I was very scared. I definitely wanted to say, ‘Hey, I wanna be here’. I wanted to prove myself. More than anything I wanted to do a good job.
It wasn’t easy. My first two movies (Jism 2 and Jackpot) were my Bollywood bootcamp. That’s what I call them. A lot of situations happened and I didn’t know how to handle them. It was the first time I was working for somebody since I was 18 years old. I was my own boss for very many years and my mind wasn’t conditioned to the idea of working for somebody else. So that adjustment took time. 

What were your big learnings from the bootcamp?
That all the chaos around is organised chaos and everything works out in the end. ‘So, Sunny, shut your mouth, just sit there and watch it all unfold. And don’t say anything till the very last second when something’s bothering you’. That’s taken a little bit to learn.

And which were the uncomfortable zones once the camera started rolling?
I guess dancing wasn’t really second nature to me. I used to play sports. I used to play with GI Joes. I didn’t play with Barbies. I wasn’t in ballet class. I was in karate class beating up the boys. That was how my childhood was. So when I was asked to lip-sync to a song, I was like, ‘What?!’ 

The other thing I used to find very challenging was how all the lines were changed in the morning of the shoot. And I had been working on the original lines for weeks! I used to be like, ‘You can’t do this to me!’ It was horrible. There are no bound scripts here. Not in the films I have worked in.

When was that moment when you realised that you were here to stay?
It was when Baby doll came out. When I was doing Jism 2, I had already signed Ragini MMS 2. We had no idea how the first film would do but we knew there was another film, so there was work. At that point it was just business. But Baby doll (from Ragini MMS 2) changed everything. Just before Baby doll another film (Jackpot) had released and it tanked, like, to the bottom of the ocean. It was a complete shock. Baby doll came out a month or two later and everything finally started moving in a direction I was hoping it would. I was very lucky that Ekta Kapoor gave me that song. 

Did it ever bother you that the films and the songs were all trying to sexually objectify you?
I do believe you can only work on what’s on your plate. Yes, the films had me in glamorous roles. But if I had been thinking that I would come to India and do Bollywood movies where I would be dressed from neck to ankle, I would have been asked to pack up and go home. It just doesn’t work that way. There is a sense of glamour whether you are a man or a woman. When you think of Hrithik Roshan or you think of Salman Khan or Kareena Kapoor or Deepika Padukone, they are all so gorgeous and beautiful. When Hrithik Roshan’s shirt opens in a movie, every woman in that theatre is going ‘Oh my god!’ It’s like a whoosh of happiness. And it’s the same for the big actresses. Every guy watching wishes that he could be with them and the women wish they could be like them. That’s always going to be there.

Didn’t you ever want to have a prim and proper image in India?
I don’t think prim and proper can ever come in the same sentence as Sunny Leone! (Laughs out very loud) But the only thing I was clear about was that I would follow and respect the rules of this country. And of people’s mindsets. There are conservative people. And there are people who are not so conservative. At the end of the day it’s about knowing where you stand and make the best choices as you move along.

Talking about best choices, your last two releases — Kuch Kuch Locha Hai and Mastizaade — have not worked at all. Do you think it’s because you are offering too much of the same thing?
I think so. I sit and I analyse all day long. I do believe this is the moment when I need to change some things. There might be a sexy quotient to a movie, which is fine, but I have to make better choices. (Long pause) Then again what are those choices? I don’t have a mentor here. I just have my gut. Between my husband, who’s handled my entire career, and me, it’s just about gut feelings. I don’t know whether my next film’s going to do well. I know it’s in a different space. My goal with my next release, One Night Stand, is to have the critics back on my side (laughs). That’s my major focus — if I can get some of the critics to not rip me apart, that would be wonderful. Because I believe there has been a huge growth in me.

Let’s talk about the now famous TV interview. At the end of that interview you said: “There’s no way I can change the way people look at me with this one interview.” But that’s exactly what happened with the interview video going viral and earning you many fans because of the way you handled yourself...
I didn’t know the video would garner such reactions and which is why I said that line. I say that all the time. You simply cannot change the perception of millions of people instantly. If I have five minutes with you and you have a conversation with me, maybe then I can change your opinion about me. It’s one person at a time. The reaction to that interview was not expected; I thought the way people will respond would be the exact opposite. I was actually quite scared. 

And I had a conversation with the gentleman after the interview. He was pretty sure it was a great interview and there was nothing to worry about. I said, ‘Sir, you are going to go home to your family and I have to deal with the repercussions of the subjects discussed in the interview, the manner in which the questions were asked’. I was quite worried. I didn’t expect the support I got from the film fraternity, from my fans and even people who were anti-Sunny became pro-Sunny. At least there was some respect, more than anything. I suddenly became a human being after that interview.

Not just that, you were even looked upon as a role model overnight. Did the idea of writing a book come from that stream of thought?
Actually the book was ideated long before that. Juggernaut came to me with this idea. They wanted me to write 12 short stories in a genre people would like to read. I love reading stories. Even though I read more scripts now than I read books. I always had story ideas in my head and I wanted to put them down on paper but there was no platform for them. This was a platform which was very new and I was excited. It was just a different way to express myself. And that’s about it; it’s got nothing to do with anything else.

It wasn’t easy. It was very challenging because I am not a writer. But I just have some amazing people on my side, helping me, fixing things like a teacher. My really good friend in the US, Tommy Ducharme, helped me a lot. I would write something and send it to him and he would go over it and send it back. The editors at Juggernaut also had their inputs. The first story ‘7E’ took the longest. There was a lot of back and forth, trying to figure out the style and the direction we wanted to take the stories.

If you were to sell the book to me, how would you sell it?
All the short stories have intimate encounters in some ways. A couple of the stories are about a moment in time between two people. Then there are a few stories where they do not have an actual intimate moment between them, but they dream about it. Like in one of the stories — one of my favourites actually — this young man who wants to be with a girl from a small town just waits for her. There’s one where one of the women loses her husband and then how she creates intimacy in her mind. The stories are all very different. 

Are all the stories fictional or inspired from your experiences?
Everything is fictional (laughs out loud). In fact all the characters in all the stories are different from each other. I really want people, when they are reading the stories, to want to know more about the characters maybe later, to want to know more details about them. That is important to me. 

Do you want to turn the stories into scripts? Maybe scripts for short films?
As we were writing them and we were going through them, my husband and I would have this conversation multiple times. ‘We could really develop this into a script!’ Let’s see. As of now, if people enjoy the stories, the battle is won.

In your earlier career, you wrote, produced and directed some of your adult films. Do you see yourself writing and directing films in Bollywood to tailor the kind of films you want to do as an actress?
I know that I probably would never like to direct a feature film. Being a director needs a special ability, to be able to see a piece of paper and create a beautiful film out of it. I think you need to be gifted to be able to do that. I am not. I would rather produce a film and sit back. Maybe give a couple of directions. As far as writing goes, I don’t know whether I am equipped to write a full screenplay. But I would definitely like to help with ideas.

New fans, now this book, an item number in a Shah Rukh Khan film (Raees), things sure are looking up...
If you would have asked me three weeks back whether I would ever be doing a Shah Rukh Khan song, I would say: ‘You are crazy!’ But it happened! And it was probably one of my most proud moments. In the middle of all the madness and all the nonsense and all the weird things that have happened to me in a not-so-great way, it was a moment I prayed for and wished for it to happen... to be able to work with somebody like him. It was such an amazing feeling. And he was so nice, so easy to work with. I was so nervous. I was, like, I can’t believe I am standing here... it’s insane. 

So, I have no idea what’s coming up. Every single day just changes. I can tell you what I have at this moment: these 12 short stories, the film One Night Stand, the song in Raees, my perfume line, two more scents will come out and some other cosmetics. But I have no idea how they will be received, any of them.

Do you feel more comfortable in this country now? Has all the nastiness and meanness subsided?
(Touches the wooden table in front of her and smiles) I have always been comfortable. I live in a bubble. Like most people in the entertainment industry. They all live in their bubbles. Because everyone’s busy doing their own work.

Do you have friends in the industry?
I have acquaintances. I have a team which is amazing. Over the last six months I have met people I never thought I would meet. I think in the industry we are in, we have to keep going. Whether some films work, some don’t, just keep moving forward, keep doing new things. The book is one such thing. I never thought I would write. But here I am, ready with my stories for the world to read.

Given that you used to play sports, do you follow cricket here?
I have my own cricket team in the BCL (Box Cricket League). My Chennai Swaggers. I attend the games whenever I can. I find the game interesting. But I don’t watch it on TV. I have a TV at home but I don’t watch it. I prefer attending the matches in the stadiums.

Any favourites?
Virat Kohli, of course. I saw his tweet the other day and I felt it was really amazing the way he defended Anushka Sharma. I think it’s absolutely ridiculous that people mentioned her name in that way. I am assuming that she is a nice person. I don’t think one has anything to do with the other. It’s such a weird thing to think about.

I have spent more than five minutes with you, Sunny Leone, and my opinion about you is that despite being one of the most sellable Bollywood actresses, someone who doesn’t need a hero to get the audiences in, you still come across as an industry outsider. Is that a fair assessment?
(Long pause) There are many times when I do feel like an outsider. I am a little awkward. I am a little shy. I know it’s a little hard for people to believe that. But I am. If I am in a big group of people, I would be more on the quiet side observing everybody, trying to get to know who they are as people. I am not that bubbly type that bounces around the room and can create a conversation out of thin air. That’s such a great quality; I wish I had even 50 per cent of that. I think it’s a process. I think people are curious: ‘Who’s this Sunny chick?’ But it takes time to get to know people.

Pratim D. Gupta
I’d like to read Sunny’s book because.... Tell t2@abp.in