Chitrangda Singh returned to the big screens with Housefull 5 after seven years, and now the actor has another big release in the pipeline with Salman Khan-starrer Battle Of Galwan. Ask her if she missed the trill of theatres in this time and she says, “It is one of the bane of being an actor that you just have to sit and wait.”

The actor adds, “It’s about the patience when you are waiting between two projects. During this time you are having to say no to certain parts even though you’re not working, because you’re not getting to work on the stuff that you want to work on. Even when something comes along and the makers want you, but you just have to say no. That phase is something all creative people go through as that is the bane of this whole profession.”

Chitrangda Singh says that along with waiting for good work during this time, she also focused her attention to production. “I tried to set up another project as a producer which is a biopic we are putting together and there is a web series that I’m also working on. I just love the medium, and I just want to be involved in it one way or the other. Even if good work is not coming, I’d rather be sitting with writers in the meantime and maybe help put something together and develop something,” she says.

But why weren’t good offers coming her way? “One thing I get to hear often is that people think I don’t live in Mumbai. Sometimes they feel like I’m probably between two cities and they are unsure whether I will take up a project or not due to that. So, often they don’t even reach out,” she opines, adding that her ‘seductress’ image also added to it. “I got similar kinds of roles offered to me in different films. So maybe that tag also played a part,” she says.

But the actor admits that while she accepts the choices she made, she does sometimes regret the projects she passed on. She says, “Every time when I see something about those works written, I just feel like going and banging my head somewhere. I wonder what I was thinking and why did I have to listen to people?” Chitrangda also gives advice to actors: “Please listen to your gut as an actor. Don’t listen to any of these wise minds that are always giving advice. It’s much better to listen to yourself than somebody else,” she ends.