‘Aditya Chopra said you can’t look like this’

Tanishaa, in a chat with Mamaraazzi, said that she was called in for a screen test for the film by Aditya, even though she had appeared in a few films by then. She shared that he had previously shared some career advice for her that she had not followed, and this time around, she assured him that she would “blindly” follow him. Tanishaa shared that when he had the first photo shoot for the film, Aditya called her out and said that the role demanded for her to have a toned body, and she immediately got to it.

“My first photo session for Neal ‘n’ Nikki, I had all these love handles and he was like, ‘No, you can’t look like this. You need to be toned.’ After that first photo session, I just went crazy and I transformd my body because I was so focused on reaching that ultimate goal and then he was like, ‘Yes, this is Nikki’,” she recalled.

‘I got hormonal imbalance’

Recalling how she worked out, Tanishaa shared that she tried to find the perfect balance between her diet and exercise, and once she found it, she followed it completely. However, she pointed out that any kind of strict routine for the body cannot be abided for long term because “if you try to keep it, you would have a hormonal imbalance, which is what happened to me.”

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‘I don’t blame myself for Neal ‘n’ Nikki’

Directed by Arjun Sablok, Neal ‘n’ Nikki was severely criticised when it released in 2005. Tanishaa said that she did not take the criticism to heart and tried to understand it in a “positive way.” “Because I was like, ‘Why did the audience feel like this?’ I went back and I saw the film. I am very objective about myself,’ she said and added, that at the time, while she was happy with her performance but in hindsight, she believes she could have done better in certain scenes. “The audience has every right to criticise,” she said.

Talking about how the film was received, Tanishaa said that film is a director’s medium, and not an actor’s medium, so she never blamed herself for the film. “An actor will only push themselves as far as the director will allow them. An actor will only do what a director demands of them. The actor has limitations. It is up to the director to transform the scene with the camera, lighting… You have so many things that you can use. Every actor has their limitations, it is about the director using that to their advantage,” she said.

Tanishaa was last seen in the 2024 film Luv You Shankar.