by Subhash K Jha

Don't raise your hopes too high. Aishwarya Rai is back briefly in Mumbai. "I'm here for about ten days. The I fly to Paris for my L'Oreal commercial before finishing the last lap of The Last Legion."

She's feeling on top of the world and looking like a million bucks... is that what she got paid for her performance in Last Legion?

"Ha! I'm not telling. What I'll tell you is, I've never had so much fun acting. So far I was doing lots of roles that required me to play women with a heavy soul... not that I didn't enjoy that phase of my caraeer. But now I'm finally playing girls who wanna have fun."

In Last Legion which she has just shot in Tunisia and Slovakia she plays a horse -rising sword- fighting warrior.

"I've never done this before. You know, ride a horse ....It was really something! There's a lot of sword fighting. There was hardly any time to prepare, to learn these things. I reached on-location and almost immediately got into it. But the whole ambience was so professional and yet so relaxed. All of us were work-oriented. But it wasn't all work and no play. Everyone was so much into work, and yet having a good time."

Ash is the main and only female lead in The Last Legion. To that extent it could be perceived as her true launch into international cine-stardom.

She disagrees. "I don't see Last Legion that way. Why do you see it as my international launch? Why is Provoked or Mistress Of Spices not international projects? Because I play Indian characters in them? It doesn't work that way for me."

Now after Last Legion Ash goes into Umrao Jaan and Dhoom 2. "Both are very different from one another. I've never played these kinds of roles before."

What's the truth about Ash losing weight to fit into a bikini for Dhoom 2?

"There's no bikini, please! But yes, I've definitely lost weight. It's a process that started earlier for Last Legion. If I had to get on a horse I had to look worthy of it, no? And since in Dhoom 2 I'm playing an utter hip-and-now character I naturally needed to get more into shape. So it was natural process. Not one of those dietary missions."

Ash shocks with her next declaration.

"Do you know, I had never worked out, never made any effort to lose weight. I'm a total foodie with a sweet tooth, and I've never tried to control my diet. During Bride & Prejudice and Raincoat the directors did want me to look a little heavy for my characters. But for Last Legion and Dhoom 2 I had to close it. Nothing stipulated in the contract or anything, please! But just something I thought I needed to do."

According to Ash-gazers she's currently in a transitional phase in her career.

"Am I? I've never looked at my career in phases. There's never the urge to look at one particular part of my career as all-consuming. People from the outside can perhaps categorize different phases in my career. For me everything I do is equally important. You may think some of my earlier films were candy floss. But believe you me, they were as hard to do as the battered wife in Provoked or the warrior in Last Legion."

Talk veers to the Bachchan and his endearment for her, 'Madam, I'm Your Only Adam.'

"I didn't know Mr Bachchan had quietly incorporated that line for me at the end of our number in Bunty Aur Babli."

She's genuinely surprised when I inform her 'Madam I'm Your Adam' has become a song in David Dhawan's new comedy Shaadi No 1.

"You can't be serious! Really? But that was a special line only for me. They can't do that," she grumbles good-naturedly.