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Manasvi Mamgai hopes to make it in the movies, like other pageant winners Aishwarya Rai and Priyanka Chopra (FILE)
Twenty-two-year-old Manasvi Mamgai is a true blend of beauty and brains.
But the Indian model who is the country's representative at the Miss World pageant in China on Saturday, says she hopes to go into movies after her commitments to the pageant are over.
“I always wanted to become a Bollywood celebrity,” she told Emirates247.com on a trip to Dubai recently.
The model, who was named Miss India World 2010 earlier this year, was in Dubai over the weekend to walk the ramp at a student fashion event.
“I have also been offered commercial A-stream films, but movies are a long-term commitment and my current priority is Miss World, where I hope to do my country proud,” she said.
Other pageant winners who have made a name for themselves in Bollywood are former Miss Worlds Aishwarya Rai and Priyanka Chopra, as well as Miss Universe Sushmita Sen.
Like other beauty pageant winners, for whom Bollywood seems a natural career choice, Mamgai hopes to make it in the movies but says she’d rather focus on the Miss World contest for the moment.
She said she wants to do films that offer her strong roles. “I would initially like to do commercial films and then later move onto character-driven roles such as those in Madhur Bhandarkar’s films,” she said, citing the example of "Fashion", the 2008 movie about the lives of people in the fashion industry.
Mumbai girl Mamgai, now 22, achieved fame at a relatively young age, taking her first steps on the ramp at India Fashion Week in 2006, the same year that she won the Elite Model Look India contest.
Everything then fell easily into place for her, and she describes her career as a “cakewalk”.
Despite that easy start, however, she has a word of caution for young women thinking about entering the modelling industry. “Once you come into this field the path is very slippery, it is important to have your head on your shoulders and not get misled,” she said.
Like any other girl her age who dreams of dating a celebrity, Mamgai is smitten by Johnny Depp, who has been named the Sexiest Man In The World.
“He is a good-looking person, talks well and is charismatic. Apart from the physical appearance, he is a good human being who has a variety of roles that are character-oriented. If I go on a date with him I will have so many questions to ask him.”
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