Mannara Chopra is a household name across the country today thanks to her stint on the most recent season of Bigg Boss. For audiences in Karnataka, though, she became familiar even earlier with her film Rogue, in which she was paired with Ishaan CV. The actress was back in Bengaluru after a while this week for a TEDx talk with students at a city college, on the sidelines of which she caught up with OTTplay for a quick chat.

In her years in the industry, Mannara has worked across multiple industries, both film and web series, as well as a lot of commercial work, and was an established name in the industry. So, it came as a bit of a surprise that she’d decided to be a part of Bigg Boss, a reality show that is widely considered as a platform for people to push themselves into the limelight and hope to get name and fame. “Yes, I had done a lot of work, but I think I was more well known in the south, but not so much in the Hindi belt, because I had done just the one film (Zid). I could have picked any other reality show, but I chose Bigg Boss as it is more about lifestyle and I wanted people to connect to me and show them my real self,” she says.

During her stint on the show, Mannara realized that some contestants were behaving like wannabes, which scared her quite a bit. “I have never been that kind of a person. I am not an opportunist who will try to insert myself into a situation and turn it to my benefit. My morals and upbringing will not allow that. Yet, I put myself amid such people to project myself and I am glad that I did it because today, when I walk down the streets, there are so many girls who come up to me and say I have inspired them,” the actress says.

Bigg Boss, she reckons, made people within the industry and outside change their perception about her. “Today, when I walk into a film office and have a conversation, they are able to picture me in different roles because they know the real me, than the perception they had of me – a typical celebrity diva capable of only carrying off certain characters. Having said that, when I went into the House, I had no idea where this journey would take me or how long I would last. Also, there are very few people who are able to make it after Bigg Boss. I am that lambi race ka ghoda. Bigg Boss for me was a personality challenge and people liked it,” explains Mannara.

Mannara Chopra reacts to being romantically linked with Munawar Faruqui; Bigg Boss 17 contestant says, 'I'm not the kind of girl...' 

Incidentally, prior to participating on the show, Mannara had not seen it or even fancied Bigg Boss, which took the showrunners by surprise. “I always felt it was a show where people fight. But I was confident about my understanding of human psychology and that I would be able to make friends inside the House. My nature is such that even if I fight with someone, I will forget all about it and move on in no time; I don’t dwell on it and have ego issues,” she says.

This kind of attitude of forgive and forget doesn’t really work for a show like Bigg Boss, but it did for Mannara. “I was at the receiving end of a lot of hate attacks from other female contestants inside the house and even today, they do talk ill of me in public. But when I see them, I give them all the love and respect because that is who I am. I have earned a lot of love and respect from people on account of how I carried myself in the House; it can’t get better than this,” Mannara tells us.

But could she have achieved the level of recognition she has today without Bigg Boss? “Maybe I could have, but that was not a given. One cannot discount the reach that television as a medium has and today, I am known across the length and breadth of the country. That makes a big difference and makes people think of me as “their girl”. If I was only doing films, they’d probably remember me by those titles and maybe even my roles in them. But today, they know who Mannara is and that she is like them. Honestly, it’s a very different fan experience, which I never thought I would get. Films would have probably gotten me more visibility in another 5 years, but if I am getting that in a few months, there’s no harm in that,” she signs off.

Read Also: exclusive! hitha on playing yuva rajkumar’s sister in yuva– it’s a good role that will reach people