When Priyanka Chopra walked the ramp for the last time in Fashion she got a standing ovation from the audience at a theatre in Mumbai. But the one to get most emotionally moved was her dad, who broke down seeing his daughter’s performance.

Watching Priyanka play the small-town girl who leaves home to become a model in the metropolis in Madhur Bhandarkar’s Fashion was a deeply emotional experience for Ashok Chopra on Wednesday.

“He just broke down. Watching my character Meghna inFashion, he saw his little girl from Jamshedpur going all the way to Mumbai to become Miss World.

In fact his sense of identification with that whole portion in Chandigarh where I’m this plump Punjabi girl leading a sheltered life with her parents, was very deep,” Priyanka said from Dubai where she attended the Fashion premiere on Thursday night.

“I identified deeply with those scenes where my character is trying to find her way in Mumbai. The only difference is my character Meghna knows exactly where she was going. I had no clue.

Also, my dad never stopped me from pursuing my dreams. He was concerned, yes. But never disapproving like Meghna’s father. In fact my dad moved to Mumbai to be with me when I decided to move to Mumbai,” she added.

Days after the film’s release, there’s a sense of outrage about the fashion industry being shown as a place of constant undercutting and heartbreak.

But Priyanka said: “It’s like that in any competitive field. We slogged hard on the research. Madhur and I gave our life and blood to the film. I was in discussions over the script with Madhur for five months before I said yes to Fashion.”

The Dubai premiere saw a few Bollywood members too as the cast of Do Knot Disturb were shooting in the city.

“We had David Dhawan, Lara Dutta and Riteish (Deshmukh) who were shooting in Dubai. Then we had the royalty from Dubai,” the actress said.

She added: “Earlier we had a special screening of Fashion for the modelling world in Mumbai. I had a ball catching up with the old times, screaming and shouting. The best thing is that the fashion industry supported us in such a big way.

People from the fashion industry love Fashion. We’ve definitely taken real-life incidents from the ramp. Even the wardrobe malfunction scene is so poignant. The designers, models, choreographers…they were all supportive.”

Model Carol Gracias, whose wardrobe malfunction incident has been incorporated into Fashion, saw the film and apparently liked the way it was handled.

“She loved the film. Carol thought it’s very classily done,” said Priyanka.

Forget the song-dance routine. The picture-perfect Kangana Ranaut no longer wants to be part of them anymore. This curly-tressed Gangster girl who wowed critics in Woh Lamhe and Life…in a Metro, wants to do refreshingly different stuff. For someone who claims her private life is “personal” she has way too many controversies catching up on her. She however avers, “I am a private person. I like to keep to myself. It’s simple. I like staying alone and away from crowd. There can be controversies about me, I don’t care. They sap my energy so I can’t keep clarifying my point of view.”

Quiz her about her apprehensions about working with a senior actor like Priyanka Chopra in Fashion and she says firmly, “Madhur (Bhandarkar) may have said that I was apprehensive of my role in Fashion, but that’s not true. I always knew what my character was like and loved that role. Priyanka is one of the best co-stars I’ve worked with. She makes an attempt to be friendly.”

Be it her alleged involvement with Aditya Pancholi or her lack of rapport with her co-stars, Kangana denies it all. “If I knew how to be politically correct, then I would be in a camp exchanging pleasantries everyday with the filmi crowd. But for me after pack up the interaction with my colleagues end.” Ask her about her relationship with actor Adhyayan Suman, whom she’s dating and she refuses to comment on him either. “I have three-four close friends in the industry. I don’t like anyone else in my private zone. I don’t wish to talk about Adhyayan. For me friendship is like ‘Love — it just happens’. I can’t try to make friends, it just has to happen. I am not comfortable with too many people.”

Kangana is getting ready for her forthcoming releases next year — Kites with Hrithik Roshan and Mohit Suri’s Raaz 2 with Adhyayan Suman. For now though, she feels, she’s unlikely to “do a film only for money”. So chances of seeing her in a “popcorn film” she points out are remote, but you can expect to see her in “roles, which will be remembered”. That’s Kangana for you, heady, addictive and different!