The new breed of actresses is full of beans. They are smart, intelligent and diplomatic and that sets them apart from their predecessors. Take Diya Mirza for instance. Right from day one, the time she won the Miss Asia Pacific pageant, she knew she had to join the movies and obviously mouthing platitudes to catch media attention was a mere ploy.

"The life span of any actress is just about four to five years," she often tells her friends. As misfortune would have it, her first three films bombed and she was even dropped from some of her forthcoming films, including the one she signed right after she won the title, to be directed by Anupam Kher, Om Jai Jagdeesh. With fewer films, Diya would have faded into oblivion. But she was clever enough to switch her loyalties from Vashu Bhagnani, whom she fell out with, to Mahesh Manjrekar overnight when the going proved to be tough. Luckily for her, she bagged assignments with Manjrekar and E Niwas.

" I don`t want the industry to be indifferent to me the way they`ve been to Tanujaji and Deepti Naval," lamented Diya, obviously referring to these talented actresses` careers nosediving due to their commercial unviability."I want to switch to meaningful cinema before it`s too late."What makes you think you can compete with Tabu and Raveena Tandon, both of whom are favourites with parallel filmmakers?