Mumbai: Doing an item song for the first time in Shirish Kunder`s `Joker`, actress Chitrangada Singh says she is not trying to changing her image through it.
"Neither am I trying to change my image nor going to fit in anything. I think one just gets put into a box in which one has to live and be comfortable in it. I am just trying to do something out-of-the-box. It is a chance and risk that you take," Chitrangada said in an interview.
Known for serious roles, the 36-year-old surprised the audience when she first opted for a glamorous role in `Desi Boyz`, followed by the item number.
"Sometimes you may just fall flat on your face. But I think it is worth taking a risk of what you can do and what you can`t," the dusky beauty said, admitting that she had never imagined doing an item song. I had never thought I would ever do an item song as such and that this would ever happen to me," she said.
"I think song and dance has always been an integral part of our films. And Indians enjoy it a lot. When there is an extra song which is shot very well, it is one little extra bit in the film for the audience," she said.
As an item girl, Chitrangada gyrates as a Marathi "mulgi" (girl) to `Kaafirana`, a rustic song with a raunchy flavour for which she looked up to Madhuri Dixit for inspiration. "Madhuri is the item girl I look up to. My whole reference point for this song is Madhuri. When I was getting ready for the song I was very excited but when I reached the sets and saw the scale at which they were going to shoot it, I got nervous. But overall it was overwhelming," she said.
"Like in songs of Rekhaji and Madhuri, I have realised the most important thing is the face and the emotions conveyed. Then of course steps and movement of the body is important," she said.
The song has been choreographed by Shrish`s wife and ace choreographer Farah Khan. "The easy part was that Farah was choreographing me. But I did injure my knee very badly, I was on pain killers, it got swollen. Farah took care of that and somewhere she changed steps," she said. On the `fakht you` words in the song being replaced by `just you`, as it was considered double meaning, Chitrangada said, "To save the controversy they changed the word. The clothes that I am wearing are like Marathi people, there were some lines which were in Marathi and there was `fakht` (which means `only`) to which some people took offence," Chitrangada said.
"One has seen `D K Bose` (from `Delhi Belly`) song. It is something that people have liked. I was told the meaning of the word `fakht`, I guess that was fine," she said.