EXCLUSIVE! 'How many times will I play hero's love interest in my career?': Lara Dutta on being seen in supporting roles

Lara Dutta in her 17-year long career in the entertainment industry has been a part of several hit films and also multistarrer flicks. Now, she has forayed into the digital world by making her debut with Hotstar Specials Hundred. Talking about her last movie outing, Lara was seen in 2018 release Welcome To New York. Now during an EXCLUSIVE interaction with DNA Online, the actor was asked if she has become choosier when it comes to movies as it's been two years.

Lara stated, "Yeah, I have. But also, there's been so much going on. I mean, I'm not like just an actor, I'm also a producer, a businesswoman and I have my skincare range, the line that I launched last year with Arias skincare. We've been building the business for the last year and thankfully, we've done well. We are pan-India now. We will soon be available in other countries as well. So there's, there's a lot that I do, even as a producer, I'm extremely hands-on. We've been creating content, we've got two projects that are happening internationally. I'm very involved in all the processes, including the business end of things."

The Billu actor shared about how she is choosing her priorities well. The former beauty queen said, "So it's about choosing your priorities and then unless something worthwhile, a substantial you see, yes, this is worth taking the time. My daughter who's still only eight years old and is my number one priority over everything else. It has to be worth it. So if I'm going to do a film, today it has to be a character or something that adds some value to your life. Otherwise, there's no point in doing the kind of thing that we've already done on screen before."

Talking about her roles in the movies, Lara has been a part of movies in which she played the supporting character and impressed with her performances too. The actor has been often nominated in Best Supporting Actor categories too. When asked about getting offered supporting roles, Lara explained, "Even when I stepped into the film industry as far back as when I did Andaaz, even though I came in as a former Miss Universe and things like that, I never came in saying, 'Oh, I want to be a Bollywood star'. I always came in saying 'I want to be an actor'. That's all I wanted to be! I just felt like this is my passion, this is what I love doing. I just wanted to be an actor. So for me, it was never that 'oh, am I the lead? How many actors in the film?', It was looking at roles that came my way and saying, 'Okay, if this is the role that I'm going to imbibe, is this when people leave the theatre and they are going to remember the character or not'. I would say that in my life, at least, it's maybe it's a personal view, but I feel that every film that I've been part of, you won't forget that character. I was able to bring my sensibility or my sort of, stamp to it so that the character stood out."

She concluded by saying, "So even if it comes to being part of multistarrer films and things like that, it's more exciting for me. If I have to sit down and keep waiting and 'I only want to be the lead', I would have been sitting and waiting and feeling a lot more disappointment. A lot more times also the lead that comes for women, what is the lead? It's the love interest of the hero, then what's the point? How many times will you play that in your career? Sure, I will do a lot of songs and I'll make a lot of money by dancing at a lot of shows. But then why did I become an actor? Not for just those things."