Actress Shilpa Shetty says there was a time when no one took her seriously to offer her the role of the protagonist, adding that she is glad that she has survived through the tough times.

“Back in the 1990’s, I have to be honest we were all typecast, either you were a very good actress and you would get those kinds of films or you would be typecast in those glamorous roles. And I was the latter, so nobody really took me seriously to offer me the main protagonist role,” Shilpa said.

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“The game changer for me was ‘Dhadkan’ where Dharmesh (director Dharmesh Darshan) really stripped me off all that glamour and actually kept the glamour but he wanted it all covered. So funny enough he was the first to tell me that ‘I want you to look glamorous but in an Indian outfit’… That changed the entire perspective of people and that film went on to become a huge hit and then I did a lot of films after that where there were meatier roles but, honesty I didn’t care, for me it was just work and I was really young then,” she added.

The actress continued: “Today we are getting scripts where everything is elucidated on paper, we didn’t have vanity vans and we still went to work with a smile on our faces in the sun and wearing those chiffon sarees in the snow. So we’ve done all of it and we enjoyed it.

“So today I feel we lead far more luxurious lives as actors, we are very very pampered with an entourage of staff and managers. I love this phase as well, I feel very pampered and feel very important but it was madness and today there’s method to that madness,” she added.

Shilpa walked into Bollywood with the 1993 Diwali release “Baazigar”. The Shah Rukh Khan-Kajol blockbuster Baazigar released on this day 27 years ago.

Looking back, Shilpa said: “I was too young to think and know, I just feel that today’s girls and boys in the industry are so sorted, they come like all prepared but for me I was a 17 year old and when I was offered ‘Baazigar’, I just did it just for the luck and for some extra pocket money and Venus signed me on for three movies.”

“And I thought they would just do 1 and forget about it and then ‘Baazigar’ became a platinum jubilee hit and after that they signed me on for ‘Main Khiladi Tu Anari’. Again ‘Chura Ke Dil Mera’ became a huge milestone for my career and then ‘Dhadkan’ was the third film. And now I mean 27 years down the line I am doing Hungama which is not my comeback but another film with the same production company, who would’ve thought that I would last out 27 years,” Shilpa said during a conversation with actress Neha Dhupia in a podcast of “JioSaavn #NoFilterNeha”.