From belting out a powerful one liner in her debut film to becoming the pin up girl of tinsel town, Sonakshi Dabangg Sinha has come a long way. While at a stage where this plump star kid was way too overweight for films and wanted to pursue fashion designing, it was Salman Khan who instilled the ‘keeda’ of acting in her. “I was really fat and unfit to appear as an actress on screen when other contemporaries were making style statements with their zero sizes and curvy figures. I had none of it back then but Salman cajoled me into losing weight. I would rather say Salman was more confident about me being a good actress rather than me being sure of it”, Sonakshi Sinha chuckled with a bout of her trademark laughter.

Recently as Shotgun Junior bamboozled the crowd switching to a Zeenat Aman-Parveen Babi inspired retro look for her peppy Disco number from Sajid’s Himmatwala, rumours were rife that Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai Again which is also a blast from the past might have her in a  retro avatar. “Well Sajid’s song had me in a very different look and the role that I play in this film is obviously a slice of the ‘80s but then again that is also really different from what you saw me in any of my other films or appearances. Both the films are diametrically opposite and here I play a character which is very different from what I have played on screen previously. So the Thank God It’s Friday look is not what I actually have in Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai Again.

But I play a woman in the 1950s in Lootera and a woman of 1980s in OUATIM 2 so maybe, the retro look is here to stay!,” she confirmed. From Dabangg to Rowdy Rathore and Son Of Sardaar, Sonakshi has shared screen space with all the major A-listers ranging from Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, Sanjay Dutt and Ajay Devgn. But a performance driven role is still something a miss from this potentially talented actress. “Yes, Lootera is a completely fleshed out performance driven role that has wowed me when I read the script for the first time. But I have always wanted to do films that I wanted to watch in a theatre myself. Be it a Dabangg or a Rowdy Rathore, I did it because I love watching such entertaining films myself. A film like Lootera comes across very rarely for any actress and that film is a beautiful film.

I could not say a no to that film. But I don’t choose a film saying that this is massy and this is classy, so I am doing it. I do films only if I like the story”, clarified the fighter of sorts who has warmed up to a lot of battles and hurdles in her life as well. With a host of films lined up this year, Sonakshi has her hands full with cinema but when the pretty actress was asked to choose the best from her kitty this year; she picked “Pakhi from Lootera and Yasmin from Once Upon A Time in Mumbaai Again” as the characters closest to her heart. For the rest, audiences will have their say, it seems!