First Career Assignment

Genelia D'Souza is the Parker girl. Shankar offered her a role in his much-talked about film Boys after seeing the ad.

Boys was a hit in Tamil and Telugu, and Genelia was flooded with Telugu film offers. She became a big name in the Telugu film industry when her film Satyam became an unexpected hit.
Even her latest Hindi film, Masti -- directed by Indra Kumar and starring Vivek Oberoi, Riteish Deshmukh, Aftab Shivdasani, Tara Sharma and Amrita Rao -- was a hit. Nearly two years after Boys, Genelia is back in Tamil as Vijay's heroine in Sachein.

How was it shooting as a young girl with Amitabh Bachchan in the Parker ad, and then cricketer Srikkanth in the Fair And Lovely ad?

Genelia: I was scared because it (Parker) was my first ad. I wasn't even the first choice for the ad. I got a call at 4 pm asking me to meet a production house for an ad with Mr Bachchan. My college exams were after two days, so I refused. But they were insistent. So I met Mansoor Khan, the director of the ad film. He said that I was really good, and he liked me. I met the producer at 6 pm the same day, and they did a small screen test because I hadn't worked before and I didn't even have good pictures clicked.

At 10 pm, I got a call saying that I was selected and I had to shoot the next day. I was not in awe of Mr Bachchan but I was scared. Above all, I had no idea what shooting was all about. Mr Bachchan helped me by saying, 'This girl is good, her expressions are spontaneous,' etc. When the producer said they had to show more of Bachchan, he said, 'Show the girl. She is doing a good job. It will help the ad.' It was really nice of him. We finished the ad in one day.