She's four films old, has three more in her kitty is already a top name in the business. But when you meet lovely-looking Deepika Padukone, you realise she doesn’t have half the airs most A-listers make journalists suffer. We meet in at the Yahoo! office in Lower Parel and surprisingly, she walks in dot on time. Along with her, come a swarm of photographers pushing to get a perfect picture. She doesn’t flinch, but the former model is happy to oblige to the relentless shutterbugs. The lens-men walk away only half -huor later, and we finally sit down for a chat.

Padukone, 23, has just returned from London shooting her first comedy, Sajid Khan’s Housefull. “It’s an out-and-out comedy, a genre really tough to get right,” she says. “You can’t do comedy well without having that perfect comic timing. I’m lucky I had Sajid to guide me through it.” It must have also helped to have Akshay Kumar as a co-star, “Of course. Akshay is also so good at comedy so to have him around made it easier but also more challenging,” she says earnestly.

Also in the making is a film with Farhan Akhtar, called Karthik Calling Karthik. “This is a compete thriller,” she tells us. “If you look at the past films that I’ve done, I think I have experimented with all there is. I’m not partial to any and I’m just glad that I’ve been able to do these films. But I have to say that comedy is tougher.”

... contd.