Believe it or not but Yana Gupta has not yet seen her own latkas and jhatkas in her recent item song Laila O Laila.

The item girl has better things to do, she says. Yana, who was busy with singing and writing songs and a book on nutrition before she made her comeback, says she now wants to be taken a bit more seriously.

"There is much more that I can give to the industry than just being a seductress." The Czech chick, who has reportedly replaced Bipasha Basu in another item number, talks to CS:

What matters
I don't choose to do item numbers. I am a music lover and it's the music that turns me on. Even when I started with Babuji, I loved the song and the whole country feel that the song had. Popularity doesn't matter to me, but what matters is my work.

Even now, after I did Laila O Laila, and compliments are coming my way, I don't really know how well I've done. It's the process that matters and not the end result.

And once I am convinced that I have given my 100 per cent, who cares about the outcome or what people think about me?

In a fix
People say that I am going Helenji's way and that's a compliment (laughs). But personally, I feel that I can do much more than just don a bikini and add glamour to a film. I can act well and can do non-glamorous roles as well, but I am not yet taken that seriously.

A few weeks back, when I wasn't in India, I was hearing a script over the phone. I heard the entire script and enquired about my role in the film. He went silent for a while and then said that I didn't have many dialogues.

I was so angry that I just wanted to cut the call right away. But I pushed myself to behave right. I think once you get typecast, it's a tough job to break free. And you can't complain and crib all the time about it.

Write side
But I don't let all this bother me much. I am still on the path of self-discovery. I can only say that I am not what I appear on screen. I am a fun-loving but also a composed person.

Every time I take a closer look at myself, I find something new within. Not many know that I sing and write songs myself. When I discovered that I could write well, I wrote a book on nutrition.

It is going to be published by a popular publishing company by this year-end. I'll say, look beyond the camera, and you will see a different Yana!