You haven’t been in touch with him?
No. When I see friends who have wonderful fathers who are like pillars of support for their families, I say, if only I had that. But instead of complaining, I should be grateful for all the other things I have.

He hasn’t tried to get in touch with you after you became a star.
No, he is not that kind of a man. He is very decent and comes from a good family and they went their own ways because of issues which are personal. He is an affluent person, so he is not going to come back because his daughter is now famous.

When did the big break come?
I don’t think I’ve had that big break. For me it was ‘oh Katrina looks nice here’ or ‘that’s a nice ad’ or ‘that’s an ok song’ or ‘that’s a nice movie’. It was all gradual, step-by-step.

Maybe it happened a little bit with Singh is Kinng?
Before that there was a film called Namaste London where, for the first time, I had a dominating role and Akshay Kumar allowed me to do that at a stage when not many people believed in me. He’s a huge star. He knew that a lot of the industry was not behind me and he still went ahead. That was a turning point in my career in the film industry. The film’s script was fabulous and for the first time I got a good response from the industry. After Namaste London, there was Race where people said, she does this kind of dancing well. Then there was Singh is Kinng and now New York.

... contd.