I have replaced Mallika: Sameera

This could possibly be the best- kept secret in Bollywood. Hardly anyone knows Sameera Reddy has a role in Ahmed Khan's Fool & Final.

But yup. She's there, playing what she calls a lengthy cameo. "I did it only for director Ahmed Khan who's a dear friend.

When he asked me to help him out in Fool & Final it was meant to be just a song and some dialogues. This finally got stretched into quite a lengthy part. And yes, I'm there in the film for quite a bit of running-time."

So why is she not featured in any of the trailers and promotional clippings? "I think they wanted me to be the surprise element in the film," she reasons rather tamely, and also adds that she won't be billed as a guest star in Fool & Final.

Another instance of Sameera Reddy being taken for a ride?

"Look," she defends herself. "There're no leads and supporting roles any more. I saw Cheeni Kum and I saw it as an example of how far our cinema has come. Look at Mr Bachchan rocking the screen at 64.

And look at Tabu standing tall. What a journey she has made in her career! I'd like my career to be like hers, or Smita Patil's. That's why I'm working with directors as diverse as Buddhadeb Dasgupta and Ahmed Khan.

It's no longer about the size of the role. I've done a 12-minute film on AIDS for Mira Nair called Migration produced by the Bill Gates Foundation. My greatest reward was when someone like Vishal Bhardwaj saw Mira's film and congratulated me."

Mira's Migration is the second film after Musafir where Sameera replaced Priyanka Chopra.

And she's no longer being featured in any of Sanjay Gupta's vast production plans.

What went wrong between Sameera and Gupta? Has their relationship ended?

"What relationship?" she counters "We never had anything to do with each other beyond a friendship. I'll always be grateful to Sanjay Gupta and his company for giving me a role like Musafir so early in my career.

As for why I don't feature in any of their new projects, there has to be something that suits me, na. But it's thanks to the confidence shown by directors as diverse as Sanjay Gupta and Buddhadeb Dasgupta that I'm able to dabble in comedy for the first time in Abbas-Mustan's Race."

Wasn't that Mallika Sherawat's role to begin with? "It might have been. But now it's mine. And that's what counts."