Disha Patani: 'I Work Really Hard To Look This Good!'

...is how Disha Patani describes her young self. At 24, the freshest face in Bollywood wants a life that’s full of surprises and a fair bit of privacy.

- Meghna Sharma

First things first: you’ve been pronouncing Disha Patani’s name wrong. It’s not Pa-taa-nee. It’s Paat-nee. But, she’s made her peace with it. “I don’t even bother anymore... It’s such a struggle for me to speak to people, let alone correct them for mispronouncing my name,” she tells us. And in the first five minutes of the interview, Disha solidifies one very important fact about herself: “I’m a complete introvert. I was very, very shy as a kid, but I’ve gotten slightly better over time,” she tells us. That’s not the only thing she had to work on. Turns out, being a girlie-girl (as we’ve seen her in commercials and films), isn’t her jam! “I was like a total tomboy, complete with short hair and all. In school, I used to focus only on studies like a geek... oh, and basketball too.” But that intel is nothing compared to what she throws at us 10 seconds later: “I didn’t have any friends till I was about 14 or 15. I just didn’t have the guts to talk to people and make friends. In fact, I was such a skinny, boyish-looking girl that people used to find me extremely weird,” she reveals.