You turn 38 in January ­ what's on your bucket list to accomplish before 40?
I always wanted to drive but never got the opportunity. Then I learned driving for TE3N and drove all around Kolkata. This year, I learned horse riding with stunt director Jeetu Verma for Begum Jaan. I don't know how to cook. My mother says, 'If you're going to have a baby, you have to learn cooking'. I want to learn swimming too, so maybe a film will give me that opportunity.

There's a lot of focus on women-centric films these days, especially after The Dirty Picture's success. How do you feel seeing young female actors doing films with no male lead?
I enjoy the fact that people also credit me for it. Having said that, I don't take ownership of it. I'm a greedy actor, and my greed takes me to the films I do. Girls all around us are living lives more unapologetically and brazenly, so it was the right time for The Dirty Picture to release.

Now that female-centric films are doing well at the box-office, are you more optimistic about the Bollywood pay gap being reduced?
Let Hillary Clinton become the president of the US and everything will change. The world has been tilted in favour of men for centuries. Now, it will get tilted in favour of women before a balance is struck (this interview was done before the result of the US Presidential election was declared). Pay depends on two things ­ how my previous film has done and if I'm the mainstay in the new film. That's how the economics have to be justified.

Are you open to the idea of collaborations in America?
I don't have an agency representing me and I've not made much effort. It works very differently there. You have to be there for auditions. I'm definitely open to working all over the world. I was on the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013 and met a lot of directors and producers but I was too shy to tell them that I would like to work with them. I have to be honest though... after doing TV, ad films, and mainstream films here, I don't think I can stomach going through the audition process there.

How do you pick films today as opposed to five years ago?
I love the idea of living another person's life for a brief while and that's what grabs me when I'm reading a script. It should make me want to inhabit the character's mind and world. It's as simple as that. There are other considerations that come after that ­ like how the director sees the film.

Are you and Siddharth planning to start a family?
It gives me a great sense of security when I'm surrounded by our families and the children. When we're with children, be it with Kunaal (Roy Kapur's) children or my sister's, it's always about them. When I took a break for seven-eight months in 2014 because of health issues, I thought I'll have a baby too. I later realised it doesn't work like that. Today, we are in a phase of our lives when we are not ready to have a child as there are other things happening. Thanks to medical science, there are no age restric tions on being a mother anymore.