Two national stars were in town recently. One, the latest model-actress who dared to bare, the other a K-series queen in search of big-screen quality quotient. Here is what they had to say...

Neha Dhupia

“I have had enough of this, I just want to be finished with it and move on.” In Calcutta to promote her much talked about film Julie, ex-Miss India turned actress Neha Dhupia was tired of answering questions about how much flesh she has shown in the film, in which her character is forced into prostitution.

On a hurricane tour of the city on Saturday evening, she made appearances at the City Centre multiplex and at the nightclub Incognito, squeezing in a media conference before taking the early morning flight back to Mumbai.

Like it or not, Neha Dhupia, who just about got noticed in her first flick Qayamat and has a series of dance-around-trees roles lined up, has become famous.

If her 10-minute gig at Incognito was any measure of her popularity, then the damsel has struck gold, what with people (irrespective of sex) climbing atop each other just to get a glimpse of the petite lady hiding behind the DJ console.

Mobile phone cameras worked overtime to capture her from any possible angle. The budding star had to leave in a rush to bring back some semblance of normalcy. This, even before Julie hits screens.

The film, to be released across the country on Friday, has Neha all nervous. “I am scared of the criticism. I don’t want people to sling mud at me after watching the film,” she revealed. Like all other actresses who dare to bare, she has her whys firmly in place. “I did not want to take up this role at first. I thought it would be too bold a thing to do.”

But the three-month long script reading sessions changed her mind, and she suggests, maybe even her career. “People will possibly take me as a serious actress now,” smiled Neha.

Shedding the composed image, she admits that “given a fairly conservative upbringing and very middle class values”, donning the Julie garb (or lack thereof) wasn’t easy. But once she put her mind to it, she found the task was not as difficult as she thought it would be.

“Once I had made up my mind, I didn’t once crib about small things like spot boys on the sets watching me bare all, I never asked for the extra people to leave while I shot. I just did my work,” she explained.

Neha did not meet a sex worker or visit a red-light area while trying to figure out the character. “The film isn’t about sex workers at all, it’s about the emotional turmoil of an innocent girl forced into this profession. So it’s more the person that is portrayed, the profession is incidental,” she summed up.

Controversy works wonders for films and their stars, and this could be Neha’s first helping.

Jaya Seal

She is the most visible face on the city streets now, staring in mild consternation from huge billboards and bus-stand sheds.

Mild consternation was replaced by a winning smile as Jaya Seal was mobbed by autograph-hunters at INOX, City Centre, at the premiere of her second Bengali film, Hothat Neerar Jonyo.

Though it’s Ekta Kapoor’s Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki that has made her a household face in cable homes across the country, TV serials are certainly not what Jaya wants.

Meaningful films — no, not the run-of-the-mill masala flicks — are what her creative faculties wish to seek out.

“I am not interested because I can’t relate to the roles mainstream Bollywood films have to offer me. Excuse Me, the only film of this kind I have done till now, was a big mistake. I took it up thinking it would be a good break. I have done six south Indian films and can say that the content quality is much higher there,” says Jaya.

For the Guwahati-born non-resident Bengali, the penchant for cinema was inherited, with her father being a film distributor. Jaya honed her histrionic skills at the National School of Drama, before taking off for tinsel-town by the Arabian Sea.

“Uttara was the best thing to have happened to me,” declares the favourite actress of director Buddhadeb Dasgupta, who gave Jaya “a very good platform” with the 1999 film. “I also got to learn a lot about certain technical details on lights and shots from him,” she recounts.

Acting on TV is something she had never considered until Ekta Kapoor called her for the role of “the other Parvati” in Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki. “Perhaps the resemblance I bear with Sakshi, who plays Parvati in the serial, prompted Ekta,” says she.

And though her stint has revved up the show’s TRPs, Jaya is keen to wrap up work as soon as possible. “TV serials don’t give the satisfaction I crave for as an artiste,” is her simple explanation.

Given a chance, Jaya would like to focus only on films that are intense and aesthetically pleasing.

“Hothat Neerar Jonyo was one such film. Besides, Subrata (director Subrata Sen) was very cool on the sets. I never knew shooting could be such fun before doing this film,” says Jaya, flashing the smile that sends Bikram Ghosh and Arindam Sil into a tizzy, on screen.