NEW DELHI: Taapsee Pannu believes that the reason her acting has been considered “natural” and “believable” so far is because she makes a “conscious effort” to stay connected to the real world.

“It’s extremely important to be disconnected and stay real and get outside because if all the time you are going to live around the industry people, how are you going to know what reality is or the real people, whose story you are going to tell on the big screen,” Taapsee told PTI.

“That is why it has always been a conscious effort on my part. I can count on my fingers the number of friends I have. It’s all because I really want to keep it real on screen and the fact that people find me very real and natural and believable on screen is because I’m connected to the real world,” she adds. The actress rose to prominence with her role in Neeraj Pandey’s “Baby” but it was “Pink” which earned her critical acclaim in Bollywood and she says the Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury-directed thriller “was my biggest pay back to Delhi girls.” Taapsee, a Delhiite herself, says there has always been a big misconception about Delhi girls that they are loud, abusive and sometimes fake which is not true. “We always have a typical notion about a Delhi girl like this is how she dresses up, very loud all the time. She always has this wannabe accent. She’ll always be abusive. No, I’m a hardcore Delhi girl and I’m not ill mannered that way. “There’s always a certain kind of fierceness that comes with us because we’re supposedly more street smart. We know the realities of life. We’ve walked the path, from DTC buses to auto walas. We have done it all,” she says. The actress hails from a non-filmy background, when asked about it, she says, “I’m a very proud outsider and even more proud underdog. If you’re an outsider then you get people like Shoojit Sircar or Neeraj Pandey who believe in you and keep on giving you good roles.” The actress is currently seen in “Running Shaadi”- her second film with Sircar after “Pink”.–PTI