Once the braces were off…

Manpriya Singh

She got chubby for Malyalam film Godha and chiseled enough for the latest Punjabi release, Nikka Jaildar 2. Today, it’s hard to picture Wamiqa Gabbi as an awkward li’l school girl who found admiration from the opposite gender overwhelming.

“I had braces on and absolutely no sense of dressing,” laughs the Chandigarh-born and brought-up girl who passed out from St Xavier’s School.

“Even in college, guys didn’t look at me. I never thought I was beautiful. Even if they did look a time, it was only for a picture or something like that,” she says alluding to her first major stint in Jab We Met.

Today, a Malayalam film Godha and a couple of Telugu and Tamil films sit pretty on her resume, including a Punjabi film Ishq Brandy.

“After Ishq Brandy, I was either not getting good scripts or not good characters. Which is why, it took as long as three years to sign my next film Nikka Jaildar 2, where at least I got the role of a parallel lead,” she shares before getting all set for a volley of random questions.

If not an actor

I’d be doing all sorts of odd jobs and travelling the world. Let alone if I wasn’t an actress, even now if my films stop doing well and people stop liking me, I’d go do odd jobs, like a waitress or something like that and save just about enough to see the world.

I have a girl crush on...

Kangana Ranaut. She is truly talented, she speaks her mind and literally doesn’t give a damn and nor is she trapped in the whole industry thing. In fact, whenever people tell me what to do, I just tell them off. They can tell me how to act, give me feedback but they can’t tell me how to live.

A Punjabi actor I want to work with

Diljit Dosanjh for sure. But since he is everybody’s favourite and everybody wants to work with him, I’d pick someone different. So, it’ll be Gary Sandhu.

The audition for Dangal

I was one of the shortlisted girls and there were only three to four of them. It was such a rush and then sudden disappointment for not getting the role. They gave me two scenes to prepare and I read everything I possibly could about Geeta Phogat and Babita Kumari. I just had to speak the dialogues in normal Hindi and not do any action.

I was destined to play a wrestler

Ironically, immediately after the Dangal auditions, I was called in for the role of a wrestler, a Punjabi girl in Malayalam film called Godha, which was immensely appreciated and went onto become a super hit.

Diet tip from Wamiqa

For Godha I had to put on a lot of weight and for my immediate next film which was Nikka Jaildar 2, I had to be fit and lose weight. I followed Keto Diet, which of course is for sometime only and it worked wonders. Within 25 days (that’s the time, I was given) I was back to looking fit and my normal self.

manpriya@tribunemail.com