You are doing a non-Yash Raj Films project after 2007. Is it true that people outside the banner had stopped approaching you?

The general reputation about me is that I turn down everything that comes my way. I don’t know whether it’s a good reputation or a bad reputation. Any reputation that you have has a good angle to it and a bad angle to it. The good thing about this reputation is that people only come to me with meaty roles. Otherwise I won’t do anything. The bad part about the reputation is that even if somebody is thinking of something fabulous, he might think it’s no use asking Rani Mukerji; she won’t do it. But I am sure this myth would be broken soon because myths are meant to be broken.

You didn’t have a release in 2010. It’s almost like you are making a comeback...

I just hope that the New Year brings a lot of good news for me. And since I have played a journalist in No One Killed Jessica (the first release of the year, arriving on January 7, 2011), the journalists will be kind and they will report correctly about me to the people!

From the promos, your character Meera Gaity comes across as very aggressive. Do you identify with a woman like her?

When my director (Raj Kumar Gupta) came to me with this idea of a character, it was very interesting to see what he had visualised in Meera. He looked at her as a very strong, contemporary Indian woman, a woman who speaks her mind, a woman who is a go-getter, a woman who gets to the core of things and gets it right. She is a crime journalist who is dealing with danger at every given point of her life. She leaves her home everyday not knowing what will happen to her. She’s a very brave and courageous character.

She’s also someone who is very real, doesn’t live under any pretence and is not answerable to anybody. She doesn’t care about how people judge her... she’s very bindaas in that sense. That’s how she has lived her life all through. And I guess, somewhere down the line, I connect with her character in the way I have lived my life, in my personal space.

Have you picked up any traits from any particular journalist?

We discussed this... Raj Kumar and I... and we decided that if we start taking traits from certain journalists we won’t be able to do justice to anybody. So we have amalgamated traits from the important journalists involved with the case and made this one single character called Meera Gaity. It would have been unfair on our part to be inspired by one reporter or physically to try and match one journalist. We wanted Meera to be her own person.

While you see the film, though, you might draw your own conclusions. But what I feel is that when a crime happens, there are dozens of crime reporters doing their jobs but there are always usually some people who get the adulation and there are others who don’t.

The kind of cuss words you are shown to be using, were you comfortable?

I had previously been very foul-mouthed in a film called Bichhoo. Actually I am very comfortable with it. Unless and until I am comfortable with something, I don’t do that. I do believe in Meera’s character a lot. She had to come across as somebody you know. She had to be that character. When people talk informally with their friends and colleagues, they don’t use poetic words or talk formally. Like in Bangla, we use ‘tui’... “Tui jinish-ta niye aaye okhan theke...” and we don’t use ‘apni’. That’s the thing with this girl... she has a very casual relationship with all her colleagues in office. When you see the film, you will see that the cuss words will just pass off and not stick out like a gimmick.

From the late 1990s when we used to make all-out masala films to 2004-05 when films became a mix of real and masala to now when we are getting real on screen, have you tried to change yourself accordingly?

I don’t think Bollywood is consciously changing from time to time. It’s just that the audience is changing the way they look at our cinema. I don’t think people would have made this kind of real cinema you are talking about if there was not a demand for such kind of cinema. We do exactly what our audiences want us to do. I don’t think we can do anything without the acceptance of the audience. And I being a completely commercial heroine, I don’t think I can deviate from that. The very fact that Meera Gaity’s character is garnering so much attention is because of the commercial angle that is being brought to the character. She is bringing an entertainment value.

Whether I am doing an Anurag Kashyap film or a Yash Chopra film or a Karan Johar film, there has to be entertainment attached with my character. Even in a film like Black, Michelle was very entertaining. She was not brooding or boring... not for a second did the audience think it’s so sad looking at her. I believe in commercial cinema, I believe in cinema as a medium of entertainment, because I believe that’s the reason the audience comes to watch us. They have to get their paisa vasool. Otherwise there’s no point. I don’t think I am cut out for that other kind of films which are made for festivals. I am cut out for my audience.

There are many who believe that Rani Mukerji is over, her best is past. Does that upset you?

I feel upset. The kind of body of work that I have suddenly means nothing when three or four films of mine don’t do well at the box office. People write you off for the simple reason that a film on the whole hasn’t worked. Nobody realises that you put in an equal amount of hard work in a flop film as you put in a hit film. There is no formula for working in a hit or a flop film. The process is the same, just that the audience likes a film or doesn’t like it. The very fact that the media can so casually write you off, hurts you. (Pauses for a minute.) It also makes you a stronger human being and you think, okay, let’s get back and punch them back. Because when you know your job and when you have the love and blessing of your audiences, there is nothing that can deter you. You can’t bog me down for long.

A lot of newsprint has been spent on you and Vidya. Let’s hear it from you: is she a friend?

I wouldn’t call Vidya a friend. Friend is a really, really strong word to use and it’s a strong emotion. The kind of generation we are living in, it takes a while to make a friend. Especially in an industry, where you are always pitted against each other, it’s very difficult to maintain a friendship. What’s important in our fraternity is that one should have respect for one another as actor and as colleagues. There’s room and space for everybody here.

It’s very foolish of people to think that Vidya and I could be having problems as co-actors. We don’t really come from the same generation. She has her comfort zone of doing films and I have my comfort zone and we both admire each other’s work. We are not friends but we really had a great working relationship.