On her 32nd birthday on November 1, Aishwarya Rai [Images] is feeling on top of the world and looking like a million bucks. Is that what she got paid for her performance in Doug Lefler's Last Legion?

"Ha! I'm not telling. What I'll tell you is, I've never had so much fun acting. So far I was doing lots of roles that required me to play women with a heavy soul -- not that I didn't enjoy that phase of my career -- but now I'm finally playing girls who wanna have fun."

In Last Legion, which she has just shot in Tunisia and Slovakia, she plays a horse-riding, sword-swishing warrior.

"I've never done this before. It was really something! There's a lot of sword fighting. There was hardly any time to prepare, to learn these things. I reached on-location and almost immediately got into it. The whole ambience was so professional and yet so relaxed. All of us were work-oriented, but it wasn't all work and no play. Everyone was so much into work, and yet having a good time."

Ash is the main and only female lead in the film. So, is this her true launch into international cine-stardom?

"I don't see Last Legion that way," Ash says. "Why do you see it as my international launch? Why are Provoked or Mistress Of Spices not international projects? Because I play Indian characters in them? It doesn't work that way for me."

After this film, Ash goes into Umrao Jaan [Images] and Dhoom 2 [Images]. "Both are very different from one another. I've never played these kinds of roles before."

How true are rumours that she is losing weight to fit into a bikini for Dhoom 2?

"There's no bikini, please! But yes, I've definitely lost weight. It's a process that started earlier for Last Legion. If I had to get on a horse I had to look worthy of it, no? And since in Dhoom 2 I'm playing an utter hip-and-now character, I naturally needed to get more into shape. It was natural process, not one of those dietary missions.

"I had never worked out, never made any effort to lose weight. I'm a total foodie with a sweet tooth. I've never tried to control my diet. During Bride & Prejudice and Raincoat the directors did want me to look a little heavy for my characters. But for Last Legion and Dhoom 2 I had to close it. Nothing stipulated in the contract or anything, please! But just something I thought I needed to do."

Is she in a transitional phase in her career? "I've never looked at my career in phases.  There's never the urge to look at one particular part of my career as all consuming. People from the outside can perhaps categorise different phases in my career. For me everything I do is equally important. You may think some of my earlier films were candyfloss. But believe you me, they were as hard to do as the battered wife in Provoked or the warrior in Last Legion."

Talk veers to Amitabh Bachchan [Images] and his 'Madam, I'm your only Adam' declaration in Bunty Aur Babli [Images].

"I didn't know Mr Bachchan had quietly incorporated that line for me at the end of our number in Bunty Aur Babli," says Ash.

And she is genuinely surprised when I inform her Madam I'm your Adam has become a song in David Dhawan's new comedy Shaadi No 1.

"You can't be serious! Really? But that was a special line, only for me. They can't do that," she grumbles jokingly.