Bhumi Pednekar says filmmaker Aditya Chopra has advised her to continue working hard as he feels she has a long way to go in her career.

Produced by Aditya Chopra, 'Dum Laga Ke Haisha' was named as winner of the Best Hindi Film at the 63rd National Film Awards. Bhumi is thankful to Aditya for giving her a break in the movie.

"It is because of his (Aditya) vision that 'Dum Laga Ke Haisha' happened. It is an unusual film where characters are so complex, the hero and heroine are unconventional.

"It takes courage to green light a project like this. I had to thank him (Aditya Chopra), as whatever I am today professionally it is because of him," Bhumi told PTI.

"I just told him what he means to me and I am very happy. He is cool and said congratulations. He says I have a long way to go and that I should work hard," she said. Before becoming an actress, Bhumi was an assistant to Shanoo, the casting director of Yash Raj films.

Bhumi revealed she was asleep when the National awards were announced. After several calls by her family on her phone went unanswered, she called them to check and that is how she learnt about it.

"There were lot of brilliant films made last year. I prayed for our film to get a national award. I feel this (national award) is the daddy of all awards and they are most credible awards as well," she said.

"Ours was an honest film. I am glad that the film did not go unnoticed, and it got attention from jury," she said.


The romantic-drama showed an overweight educated girl Sandhya (Bhumi Pednekar) married to school dropout Prem (Ayushmann Khurrana), who owns a cassette shop.

"I guess, we (film) were underdogs. It broke lot of barriers, like the hero and heroine were not traditional. I did not think about the film getting commercial success. We are glad it worked for us," Bhumi said.

The actress is open to taking up challenging roles even if she has to undergo a drastic look change for it.

"I am a hungry actor. I hope I get roles where I can experiment with myself and push boundaries, do something that sets benchmark. My aim is to do interesting, good, credible work," Bhumi said.

Both Ayushmann and Bhumi have once again been paired in Anand L Rai's home production film "Manmarziyan". There are couple of projects in the pipeline, but Bhumi was not willing to share details.