IPL does not need me anymore, says Preity Zinta

Preity Zinta

She prides herself in doing one film at a time and surviving in the Bollywood arena, but Preity Zinta's subsequent involvement in Twenty20 cricket tournament Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2008 affected her movie presence. Now, the dimpled beauty with brains is ready to be back with a bang in filmdom.


Preity Zinta

A co-owner of IPL franchise Kings XI Punjab, Preity, who is coming to the small screen as a judge on dance-based reality show Nach Baliye, says she wanted to particularly focus on cricket back in 2008.

"I wanted to focus on cricket that time. Acting is not something that you can just do. When you go and start performing, you put yourself in a safety deposit box and you become somebody else. A lot of me was required in cricket because I was starting a new business.

Involved in the process
"I went through the whole process on my own and I didn't think it was possible for me to do all that and become somebody else.

Something was going to suffer and after all these years in the industry, I didn't want to end up doing films where either production suffered or I, as an actor, suffered. I was quite happy to take on cricket and do that. I wanted growth," said Preity.

Now that it's been been eight years of IPL, she feels "IPL doesn't need me anymore". "Now I just have to come and watch the game. The business is doing well, the team is doing well. Things have fallen into place.

Now doing this ('Nach Baliye') or movie sounds exciting to me because I've been away from them for sometime. I've come back with a fresh perspective and I'm in a different space. I never thought that I would be so excited about judging a dance reality show," she said.