Bhagyashree tells JYOTHI VENKATESH that she is blessed that she is still remembered as the Maine Pyar Kiya girl, twenty years after the film was released.

Do you think your image as the virgin girl of Maine Pyar Kiya has worked as a handicap for your career?
Why should I feel that my image as the Maine Pyar Kiya girl is a handicap to my career, because of the expectations that the film had created about me?

On the contrary, I feel that it is a blessing that I am still being remembered for my performance in Maine Pyar Kiya even after twenty years.

Like people referred to Amjad as the Gabbar Singh of Sholay all his life, you are still remembered for your performance in Maine Pyar Kiya!
I do not introduce myself as I am the same Bhagyashree who had acted in Maine Pyar Kiya. I cannot help it if people refer to me as the Maine Pyar Kiya girl. If you go through history, you will realize that any one is remembered for a particular thing that he or she had done all through his or her life, like Einstein, Adolf Hitler etc.

Do you think you lost out on plum roles because you insisted that you would act only with your husband after your marriage?
I was a newly married girl when Maine Pyar Kiya was released. When offers started pouring in for me, I was determined not to do any intimate scenes with any leading man of that time and hence suggested to my producers that I was ready to do intimate scenes in films only if I am paired opposite my own real life husband.

I did not say that I would not act in any film if my husband is not cast in the film opposite me.I realize that I was too naïve at that point of time to bother to clear it up with either the media or the film industry people.

Did your films flop because the audience rejected your pairing with your husband?
The reason the films Himalay and I did not click at the box office is that the audience was not in a frame of mind to accept a real life pair as a reel life pair.

Except for Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai, the audience has not accepted any other real life star pair as reel life husband and wife till date.

Himalay and I were too young then and people could not understand the idea of a husband romancing his wife in public on screen though we took it up as an opportunity to be close to one another.

Is it true that you are keen to work with every star of today?
Today I feel I am blessed when people walk up to me and tell me that I look the same like I did twenty years ago in Maine Pyar Kiya Today I want to work with Salman Khan, Aamir Khan and of course Shah Rukh Khan.

I find Ranbir cute and would love to be paired even opposite him. I also want to work with Amitabh Bachchan.

I would be happy to work with the new crop of young directors who know their craft at the back of their hands. I want to be a part of a mad film like Dostana and a hard core realistic film like A Wednesday.

Is it true that you are acting in a Marathi film?
Though I received a lot of offers to act in Marathi films, I used to turn down the offers because either the dates were a problem or the location where I was required to shoot.

Sometimes the script was not to my liking. Every thing fell in place this time and I am playing the lead opposite Baharat Jadhav in the Marathi film Jhak Maarli Baayko Keli directed by Bhaskar Jadhav.

I play an innocent wife who has to deal with a situation which is beyond her control when her husband is embroiled with an extra marital affair and she does not wish to lose him to the other woman because she is in love with him. It is a woman oriented family film.

How would you evaluate your growth as an actress?
When I compare myself with the heroines today, I feel that I have done only work for two years though I have been in the industry for the last 20 years, because I have worked in a few films after Maine Pyar Kiya.

I feel that I have grown as a person because I have met a lot of people and gone to different places and been in different situations and hence am more fine tuned, because your depth f understanding and also receptive power changes when you grow.