Divya Dutta says she didn’t want to play Preity Zinta’s friend in Veer-Zaara: ‘I’ve always fought that battle..’

In an interview with ANI, Dutta recalled the time she met Yash Chopra for the first time. She said, “Aditya Chopra was sitting and Yash uncle was also sitting, they told me there’s Shah Rukh Khan, Rani Mukerji, Preity Zinta, Amitabh Bachchan and Hema Malini in the film. So I was like ‘what am I doing in the film?’ They told me you are doing the friend’s role.” The actor said that she was skeptical about taking the role offered to her.

 

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Dutta added, “My mother told me ‘listen, do you have a godfather’ I said no, so she said, ‘Do you, uh, think I’m going to produce something for you?’ I said no, so she said, ‘Then go ahead, take a role that is so beautiful, make it your own, do it so well that people write roles for you.’ And hence, it happened with Veer Zaara for me. In fact, Aditya had told me, ‘If it was any other role, I wouldn’t have called you.’ So trust me, the way he said that stayed with me.”

After playing the role of Shabbo in Veer-Zaara, Dutta earned the Best Supporting Actress nominations at various awards ceremonies, including Filmfare. She said, “I’ve always fought that battle, that don’t call me a supporting or a character actor. I think I’m an actor. Today, I’m doing lots of lead roles, very strangely, I’m working in a reverse way. So, I think our industry, they have seen me come the hard way. Somewhere that X Factor thing that I had learned from my mother, I think that everyone noticed, and people like me.”