Dressed in an olive off-shoulder tee and blue jeans, the svelte and petite Amrita Rao looks nothing like the sexy girl we see in the promos of Short Kut –The Con Is On. She is still very much the cute girl-next-door you’d like to take home to mom. But Amrita doesn’t buy that. “An actor is as good as the role,”she says in defence of her hot makeover. And what better role to shed inhibitions than that of an actress? As Mansi, she plays a girl who hails from a mediocre background and hits stardom. “As an actress, the role gave me an opportunity to explore different costumes,”she smiles, acknowledging Manish Malhotra for putting her in hot pants and singlets that has got her “amazing feedback from London-based fans for exploring a new side”.

Would she have dared to bare, say two years ago, when Vivah happened? “You can’t calculate these things, they just happen to you. This opportunity came to me now,” she says shortly. In fact, she had confessed that if she ever exposed on screen, it would be a la Bo Derek in a bikini, coming out of the water. “Did I say that?”she says surprised, and adds that she indeed has done a similar scene in Short Kut... . She is grateful to director Neeraj Vora for casting her in a role that is completely different from the ones she played so far. “Most of my roles have had streaks of a real girl from the real world. An actress, on the other hand, is perceived as larger than life and this role gives me that dimension,” she explains.

... contd.