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Her dream, a second look

After establishing herself as a screen scorcher, Koena Mitra now wants to show her comic side in "Apna Sapna Money Money", says Anuj Kumar

PHOTO: RAJEEV BHATT

STILL ON THE ROAD! Koena Mitra is now looking for an image change

Plain talkers are rare in Bollywood. Koena Mitra, refreshingly, is one. She says Bollywood divides its actresses on the basis of looks. "One category is of the girl next door and the other is of sexy siren. I was intelligent enough to know which category I belong to."

This Gladrags Mega Model winner announced her arrival with an item number in Road. And soon got slotted. Musafir and Insan followed but the box office refused to change its opinion. She got a solo lead opposite Fardeen Khan in Ek Khiladi Ek Hasina, but the critics branded her as a wooden beauty. Koena terms it as another Bollywood cliché that she followed. "Here a new heroine gets noticed only if she is paired opposite a big star. I accepted Musafir and Insan because I was paired opposite Anil Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt, and Ajay Devgan (respectively)."

This Friday, however, Koena hopes things are going to change with Subhash Ghai's Apna Sapna Money Money. "It is easy for critics to say that I am doing same kind of roles, but where are the offers to do something different?" She says all along she has been offered roles where she was supposed to look good, but the characters were serious, stern. "This is for the first time that I have been cast in a light-hearted role where I am supposed to laugh."

After money

Promoted as a laugh riot, where every character is after money, Koena plays Julie, "a singer who wants to cut out her own album and that's why is after money." Koena says it was a prank-filled atmosphere on the sets as well. "For a scene I was decked up as a bride. Ritiesh (Deshmukh) came out of nowhere with Suniel (Shetty) and sneezed on my face. He said he is feeling unwell and before I could say anything sneezed again. My entire make up went for a toss and I didn't know how to react. This happened three four times before I realised that it was prank. Ritiesh used to do the action and sound and Suniel would spray water from the side."

Koena says her first love is dance. "I was trained in Indian classical by Mamta Shankar from nursery to eleventh standard and side by side learnt Latin American, hip hop and ball room dance." This, however, she feels is impeding her career as an actress. "Remember the `Saki' number took the entire focus off whatever scenes I had in Musafir. My next film is Anant Mahadevan's Anamika, where there is no scope for dance numbers, just acting ."

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