Vidya Balan recently opened up about the time when Vidhu Vinod Chopra asked the actor to get a face surgery done as he felt that her nose was “too long”. The two worked together in the romantic-drama Parineeta (2005), which was co-written and produced by Chopra.

During an interview with Filmfare recently, the actor said that the filmmaker wasn’t impressed by her face. “Vidhu Vinod Chopra said, ‘Your nose is too long, let’s get a surgery done.’ I refused. I’ve never had anything done to my face — just the odd facial. I’ve always believed in keeping my face the way God made it,” Vidya said.

The actor recalled how her life changed after Parineeta. “It was a massive success. Top directors started calling. But at photoshoots, they’d say, ‘Let’s try something new with you,’ and I’d think, ‘What have you even seen of me to want something new?’ They’d say, ‘Let’s make you look younger and sexy.’ I was open to experimenting, but after a while, it got frustrating,” she added.

Helmed by Pradeep Sarkar, Parineeta also starred Sanjay Dutt and Saif Ali Khan in the lead and was adapted from Bengali writer Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s novella of the same name. It marked the debut of Vidya who had earlier worked in a Bengali film.

Parineeta is set to be re-released in theatres on its 20th anniversary on August 29. Speaking about the film’s re-release, Vidya said earlier, “Every frame of the film carries a piece of my heart, and I'll forever be grateful to Pradeep da and Mr. Vinod Chopra for believing in me. I owe so much of who I am as an actor to this film. Even after all these years, people remember the film, the songs, and how it made them feel.”

Meanwhile, Vidya was last seen in Kartik Aaryan’s horror-comedy Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 which released in theatres last year.