I look glamourous and sexy: Shefali Shah

Shefali Shah who has won accolades for her performances in "Satya", "Waqt" and "Gandhi, My Father" is all set to surprise the audience with her fun-loving role in Barnali Ray Shukla's "Kuchh Luv Jaisaa" that releases on May 27.

The young actress who jokes about her perceived dinosaur screen age just because she played Amitabh Bachchan's wife once in her husband Vipul Shah's "Waqt-A Race Against Time", laughs about how the best filmmakers in Bollywood are scared of breaking a prototype. Says Shefali, "All filmmakers talk about wanting great actors. However, if an actor has played a certain kind of a role once and excelled at it, then they keep typecasting the actor."According to Shefali there is an unsaid norm in the industry that if you are a heroine of the film, you do not need to act. In the same way, she also feels that there are people who believe that, "Intelligent, thinking actors cannot be glamorous, act sexy or dance."

Says Shefali, "The point is I look glamourous and I can dance without even trying too hard. Just because I am a wife and a mother and an actor who can play roles of any age, it doesn't mean that I should be typecast in any way."

Shefali has been receiving compliments from the most established filmmakers in Bollywood and outside. She says there are only a few who are willing to take the 'risk' of giving her a challenging role.

Asked whether she can handle an item song like a Malaika Arora Khan does; Shefali says, "Yes I would take an item song in my stride. But item songs are not the only way people dance. Only can dance with abandon in a discotheque."

Shefali is sure that Kuchh Luv Jaisaa will get filmmakers to offer her fresh challenges. "This film could really set people thinking on what I can do," she laughs.

Shefali Shah the makeover mommy

Actress and mother of two, Shefali Shah gets candid with reader Varsha Aswani on what it takes to raise 'terrorists', keep a marriage together and look like a million bucks

Makeovers are as commonplace in Bollywood as stilettos are in a five-star lobby. It was only once we got to Vipul Shah's office to meet the stunning new version of his wife that we grasped the gravity of this change.

Mirror reader Varsha Aswani was keen to discover how the busy actress managed the dramatic shift.

The sprawling office with cooling lights and white smooth walls was a relief from the scorching sun, as were the four air conditioners operating on full blast.

As we all settled in on fluffy sofas, movie buff, mother of three and grandmother of two, 52-year-old Varsha shifted around nervously. "I'm not sure about what I will say, I'm a little nervous," she said before the actress came in.

Shefali Shah stormed into the room with a resounding 'Hi' and plonked herself onto an adjacent couch. She was beaming and looked like she had managed to drop half her body weight on a whim while vacationing in Santorini. Her cheerful introduction seemed to have a calming effect on the group.

"The job of a homemaker is one of the toughest in the world," exclaimed Shah while Varsha introduced herself as one. "I have two terrorists at home. My sons are aged eight and nine and it's a nightmare.

They not only hate each other but go a step ahead and encourage me to kill their sibling. Once I called home to check up on them and was horrified to hear my younger son insist that our maid jump off from our seventh floor house!"

Varsha empathised and was interested to know how this 37-year-old mother managed to look as good as she did. "It wasn't easy at all," she said. "I have literally starved myself. It's been one endless diet. It started out with Ketosis, which is an intense offshoot of the Atkins diet. It takes a toll on the body but I did lose about 10 kgs in a month. Then I moved on to a food and exercise-oriented lifestyle to maintain it," she said.

"After years in the industry, which is your favourite medium television, films or theatre?" asked Varsha.

"I started with television but back then serials were a lot more meaningful. We had beautiful stories to tell. Now everything seems mass produced.

Theatre is definitely the toughest because I wasn't used to the loud tone and expressions. It took a little doing but I enjoy it. With films, your slightest flicker can be an emotion on the big screen. They are all so challenging and enjoyable. But these days, one needn't be a great actor to be a big star. The criteria have changed," she laments.

Ten years of marriage, two children and a hectic professional life, how does she make time for her relationship, asked Varsha.

A question closely associated with the subject of her latest film Kucch Love Jaisaa, where she plays the role of a woman so engrossed with her family that they take her for granted until she snaps and goes on a spending spree. "It's a lot like the movie. We get lost in our given roles of mother, wife etc, and almost never make time for ourselves.

Our new house is being readied, young boys, a movie up for release, we have little time for eachother," she confessed. "But even though the conversation doesn't veer far from home and work, Vipul and I try and take some time out exclusively for each other.

Over time, couples tend to take their partner for granted. Our relationship has evolved. I don't get as easily rattled as I did earlier, I am a lot more relaxed, we understand each other better," she says.

As if on cue, Vipul Shah flitted into the room and was greeted by a 'Hi baby' from his wife. They smiled at each other and carried on. After a decade, that's still a lot more than many other couples can boast of.

Shefali in jail

Ladies, there's a new housewife in town! This one's with an adventurous streak. Shefali Shah plays a desperate housewife, who runs into a criminal, in her forthcoming film Kucch Luv Jaisaa.

And to get a first-hand feel of her character, she decided to visit a jail. Dressed in a simple kurti and jeans, sans make-up and without informing either her director or her co-star Rahul Bose, she spent one day in a jail with an undertrial. "It was unnerving, of course," she admits. "I wanted to be honest and absolutely non-judgmental towards him. And in some time, I realised that we did share a common ground of what two human beings could possibly share. We talked of everything under the sun, including small things that matter such as the food in the jail," confessed Shefali.

After Satya and Monsoon Wedding, Shefali may have suffered a stereotypical fixture in Bollywood, but sure enough she wanted to break that mould and offer something realistic. "It's true that I wanted to challenge my past roles and come up with something fresh and exciting. I so wanted to destroy my comfort zone and break free. Thankfully, I could do that with this film," adds a much-slimmer Shefali.