Model-actress Lisa Ray reckons she'll never fit into mainstream Bollywood.

"Such is the ethos, the power and grandeur of Bollywood that once you're in it, you become like it is. You are sucked in. The same song and dance routines, the same looking pretty all the time - it's a little mindless," tells Ray in an interview here.

Nothing can ever cut her down to size, she said, her grey-green eyes flashing.

"I just can't do it. People from Bollywood come to me and say: 'Lisa, what is the lifespan of an actress - five years? May be six or seven? Maximum eight? So, you have to hit now. Hit, hit, hit.

"I'm like 'please forgive me, I cannot hit, hit, hit. Impossible'."

More than 10 years after this half Bengali, half Polish girl swept into the limelight with a series of ads and the famous video of the late Sufi maestro, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Ray remains a bit of enigma shrouded in more a little mystery.

"I have clear definitions - work, play. I never confuse the two and I don't let the world know about my private life. That's the way I want it. If that's enigmatic, it suits me," she laughs.

Ray was the proverbial Indian dream woman of the 90s - picture perfect milk and cream complexion, striking cat eyes and an hourglass figure to die for.

But just when she was breaking into Bollywood (she just did one film "Kasoor"), Ray quit to return to her home in Canada and then to London to study theatre.

"I had been working since I was 17. So I had had no time to do all things that I really wanted to do. That's exactly what I'm doing."

In between there was "Bollywood, Hollywood", a film that made her a huge star in Canada, where she grew up.

"I was used to being recognised in India, but suddenly everyone knew me in Canada. These were the people I had grown up with, so it was a little surprising.

"But 'Bollywood, Hollywood' did wonders for me. It became one of the biggest films ever in Canada and I got a lot of interesting offers. But even today I refuse more work than I accept. I'm very, very choosy. I only concentrate on one project at a time."

She has just finished Deepa Mehta's "Water", which is why she is sporting short hair ("I have to grow them back, for sure") and has just finished a Canadian film "Seeking Fear".

And reading lots of scripts. "The Bollywood stuff is really not very challenging. But I've now got the right agent in Hollywood and there is some very interesting work I'm looking at.

"I'm Sufi in spirit. Till something great comes, I'm happy wandering around."