The first thing you notice about Sushmita Sen as she saunters in is that she is looking much slimmer than seen in recent times. The yo-yoing of the weighing scales has raised many questions, and the ex-Miss Universe takes the first given opportunity (and well, each such thereafter) to explain herself. “I have shed a total of nine kilos. I had to look like a khaate-peete ghar ki aurat (a well-fed woman from a well-to-do family) in Do Knot Disturb ,” she says. So why didn’t she clarify when there was all sorts of speculation about her excess weight? “David (director Dhawan) didn’t want to let the cat out of the bag about my role. I kept quiet,” she replies.
Produced by Big Pictures and Puja Entertainment, David Dhawan’s Do Knot Disturb is a comedy about infidelity and its repercussions. Sushmita Sen plays the glamorous wife who is a control freak and also not as sexy as the new lover (Lara Dutta) that her husband (Govinda) discovers. “Marriage and infidelity are David’s favourite topics and I think he does a great job of portraying the problems in a comic way. I play a boring wife who’s suffocating her husband, and in walks Dolly (Lara’s character) with her sexiness et al,” she laughs.
The mention of sharing screen space with another glamorous actor, and that too yet another ex-Miss Universe, doesn’t seem to be giving rise to the green devil inside her. “Oh yes. Lara and I were scratching each other’s eyes out and pulling apart each other’s hair. We used to have huge cat fights on the sets, and poor David had a tough time handling us,” she says in mock seriousness. She adds: “Lara is a fantastic person to work with. In fact, she has more to do in the film than I have. More so, look at what she’s looking like while I, thanks to my wife’s role, had to slap on the kilos. That’s what you have to do to become a wife. It happens to a lot of women out there. They tend to let themselves loose post-marriage.”
After Kyunki Main Jhoot Nahi Bolta (a poorly-inspired version of Liar Liar ) in 2001, which did badly at the box-office, Sushmita and Govinda have come together again. Some years ago, there was talk that the two actors didn’t get along well. Ask her about her relationship with the actor-cum-politician, and she says: “I got along fabulously well with him. We had a great time on the sets.”
Sushmita’s production plans have not gone as planned. Her dream project, Rani Laxmibai, is on hold and another one on the late Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto is awaiting approval from the Pakistani Government. But, her acting roster, which looked quite botched up in the last couple of years, looks like it might finally pick up. Besides Do Knot Disturb , she has one-time boyfriend Mudassar Aziz’s Dulha Mil Gaya with Shah Rukh Khan and Fardeen Khan and Anees Bazmee’s No Problem with Sanjay Dutt, Akshaye Khanna, Anil Kapoor and Kangna Ranaut.
