She’s no Freida Pinto

The film,which releases in India on May 4,is a story about a bunch of Britishers who come to India to spend their retirement years in an exotic hotel. Even after they find out it is not exotic,they stay on and experience India. Desae,however,keeps her character under wraps. “I can only tell you that I play a comic role,” she says.

Desae is a familiar face on Indian television,thanks to the number of commercials she has done. She has also worked with three Khans — Aamir,Shah Rukh and Saif — at least as far as advertisements are concerned. Yet,when she came to Mumbai from Bangalore in 2006 after being selected for Channel V’s Get Gorgeous,she wasn’t inclined only towards modelling.

“I knew I wanted to act. That’s the reason I went for four to five auditions a day.” Eventually,her perseverance paid off when she was chosen to play a very intense role in her first film,Yeh Faasley (2011).

Incidentally,all the acting she learned also happened on the sets of her first film. “I wasn’t a trained actor when I gave auditions. But on the sets of Yeh Faasley,it was Anupam Kher who took me under his wings and made sure I emoted right,” she says. Post this,she signed her second film Sahi Dhande Galat Bandhe. However,getting into Bollywood wasn’t easy still and her round of auditions continued. As they say,every cloud has a silver lining,Desae found hers when one day,one of the casting directors she knew from her modelling days gave her a call. “Being in Mumbai,my heart was set on Bollywood films. So when casting director Seher contacted me for an audition,I was initially confused,” she says.

But then Desae went ahead and tested for it. “I went through three rounds of auditions. Even the thought of working with Judi Dench and Maggie Smith was overwhelming,” she says,who couldn’t control her excitement when she bagged the film and,as she puts it,“ran around the house like a crazy girl”.

Now,with the movie complete,one would assume that she would be keen on signing more international films. But Desae has a different plan. “I want to do films in all languages — Hindi,English,Korean,Japanese,Spanish. It is the language of cinema that is of the utmost importance to me,” she says.