"I play a very lusty Mona darling in Zanjeer," says Mahie Gill

The new-age Zanjeer just got a lot sexier. Mahie Gill who plays the new-age vamp Mona Darling, done to seductive heights by Bindu in the 1973 version of Zanjeer, flew to Bangkok to shoot some of the funniest sex scenes of her life. Apparently Mahie plays an extremely libidinous Mona who has the constant hots for the villain Teja played by Prakash Raj. But somehow, we hear, Mona doesn’t…err get it. When questioned about character’s coitus interruptus Mahie laughed, “That’s right. I play a very horny Mona Darling. I’m constantly lusting after Prakash Raj. But every time we are close to doing ‘it’ something or the other happens to spoil it. So eventually I am a very lustful but frustrated Mona. The director Apoorva Lakhia has re-written the Mona-Teja scenes beautifully. With due respects to Binduji and Ajitji we couldn’t play the roles the way they did 40 years ago. Zamana badal gaya. What was seen as sexy and seductive back then is no longer so. Apu has made our characters constantly on the edge of sex and never quite getting there. It’s actually far more interesting than just tumbling into bed.” For Mahie who has been doing torrid love-making scenes from the time she came in Dev D, this is quite a departure from her usual roles. “Ironically when I am playing a full-on seductress I am not doing bed scenes,” laughs Mahie who is thrilled to bits by the role’s glamour quotient. Her clothes are being designed by the classy non-filmy Pria Kataria Puri. Says Mahie, “So far I’ve never been dressed up to be glamorous. Apu Lakhia had a special glamorous look in mind for me. He didn’t want it to be a filmy glamour. He wanted me to look very different from the usual vamps and seductresses. Believe me when I got into Pria’s clothes I felt different.” Mahie shot simultaneously in Hindi and Telugu for Zanjeer. And she learnt Telugu from scratch for the part. Prakash Raj was also a great help. “There was a Telugu teacher for me who accompanied me to Bangkok. He was there on location to make sure I got the punctuation right. But Prakash was also a big help. He told me where to take a pause while delivering my Telugu lines.”