Over the years, I have found the acting craft becoming more comfortable: Deepika Padukone

Deepika Padukone is quite excited about her latest suspense thriller Race 2 that has released yesterday (25 January 2013). This sequel remains true to the Abbas-Mustan genre and like its first part (Race), is full of twists and turns. “All the characters are grayish. Everybody from John Abraham, Anil Kapoor, Jacqueline Fernandez and Ameesha Patel, have their own agenda and try to exploit the other. The film is full of action, but I don’t have any particular action sequence. In the end, we come to know as to which character has betrayed the most and which the least," she reveals to Moviechakkar. Talking about her character, Deepika who is for the first time playing a negative role says, “Alina is a seductress who uses her beauty and intelligence to get what she wants. I obviously don’t identify with her. But there are several woman-like qualities in her from where I have drawn inspiration from. It was quite tough. But at the end, when you come out of the theatre don’t think that she is a bad woman; it’s just that her methods are not proper.” “It is indeed a risk to try out a negative role, but I believe that as an actor, you should always try out different things. And if you are able to carry it off convincingly, the audiences will accept you. But yes, it is a very thin line which you have to tread carefully on. I know many actors shy away from the same due to the fear of a backlash. ” Coming to her chemistry with Saif Ali Khan with whom she has done a number of films, Deepika observes, “This equation will be interesting in Race 2, given the story and the character. It will totally be different from say Love Aaj Kal which was a romcom or Cocktail for that matter. Saif helped me a lot during Race 2 to make me understand the genre, since he was a part of the original as well.” She does not feel that the baggage of Abbas Mustan’s last film Players which tanked, will affect the chances of Race 2. “The audience is very forgiving; they are only concerned with what is coming next Friday. If you give them a good film, they will accept it and forget the past. The director duo is past masters of this genre. They have a very stylized way of film making which hardly anybody else has in Bollywood.” In between, there were reports that you wanted to quit Race 2 in the first place? “The reports were exaggerated. The issue was that the schedule got delayed and in a multi starrer, dates always can be an issue. And here, every body’s dates had to be pushed back. In the end, I am glad that things worked out and I sincerely believe that whatever film you are a part of, it’s your destiny.” Deepika who has had a five year long career, further avers, “Over the years, I have found the acting craft becoming more comfortable. I guess hard work also plays an important role. The success of Cocktail has changed people’s perceptions towards me.”