She has given path-breaking performances in several critically acclaimed movies, but actress Tabu feels Bollywood filmmakers have not utilised her full potential yet.

When asked if while looking back she feels filmmakers have not tapped her full potential, Tabu told PTI, "Absolutely. I don't think I've tapped my full potential, forget the filmmakers...I think a very minuscule part of my potential has been tapped."

The 44-year-old actress, who has won two National Awards for her roles in "Maachis" (1996) and the 2001 drama "Chandni "Bar", says she feels like this because she has a different understating of herself today.

"I feel that may be it's not true. May be I feel that now when you have a different understanding of your own potential, of yourself. I feel I could've done things in so many different ways," she said.

"I've got to do a lot. But I feel there is a lot which can be done also. Of course everybody thinks and feels like that," she said. Following her award-winning stint in "Chandni Bar", Tabu then acted in "Maqbool" made by filmmaker Vishal Bhardwaj's, who she believes "allowed" her to try different things as an actress. "He has allowed me to do it. I got a chance to do it with him. I didn't even know what was in store for me in 'Maqbool' or the kind of film he was going to make. I was just too excited to play this character which was unusual for a Hindi cinema heroine to do at that time," she said.


The "Cheeni Kum" actress, who worked with Bhardwaj again in "Haider", says an actor looks at himself the way a director visualises him.

"Vishal sees in me something which not everybody else is able to. Just to get that from a director that 'Oh my God he is visualising me like this', it makes your work different. You look at yourself the way a director looks at you. That gives you the basis for your performance," she said.

Tabu will be seen next in Abhishek Kapoor's "Fitoor", releasing on February 12. The film, which stars Katrina Kaif and Aditya Roy Kapur, is based on Charles Dickens' novel "Great Expectations".

The actress has been part of several book adaptations, from "Maqbool" and "Haider" - based on William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" and "Hamlet" respectively, to "Life of Pi" (based on a book of the same name by Yann Martel) and "The Namesake", based on a novel by Jhumpa Lahiri.

"I don't know why all book adaptations come to me. I must become the poster girl for adaptations of books," she said.

When asked if it is easier to play a character based on a book, Tabu says, "I didn't know anything about the characters till the scripts came to me. I haven't read those books. "Because I have not made my own thing about them, I go by the script and whatever brief my director or writer gives me about the character," she added.