From being called bohemian and sexy to receiving unwarranted advice on her complexion, Bipasha Basu came face-to-face with the unspoken rulebook of Bollywood when she forayed into films. Basu made her debut in 2001 with Ajnabee. “It was back then when I met my first hairstylist, Kaushall, who basically taught me the rules of being a heroine,” quips the actor, adding, “My choices, roles, presence, my look... everything was different.”

Ask her to tell us more about the rules and she narrates: “I was having iced tea in a (cocktail) glass once during a shoot and my hairstylist came and told me that ‘Everyone is thinking that you are drinking whiskey’. She asked me to drink it in a cup. This other time, I was wearing a backless blouse and she told me, ‘Actresses don’t dress up like this’ off screen.”

Also, it wasn’t just about Basu’s clothes, but also about her skin colour. “I used to love sunbathing, but I was told, ‘You shouldn’t get tanned because you’re already dusky’. But none of these things stopped me,” asserts the actor, while adding, “These were some rules that I was told to follow from right from my first film. But I am glad, I never followed any of it.”