‘Zindaggi Rocks’ is the fourth time that Sushmita has worked under the direction of a woman director. Earlier she had worked with Meghna Gulzar in ‘Filhaal’, Farah Khan in ‘Main Hoon Na’, Kalpana Lajmi in ‘Chingari’ and now with Tanuja Chandra in ‘Zindaggi Rocks’.

Talking about Tanuja Chandra, Sushmita quips, “Tanuja Chandra is one of our intelligent filmmakers who likes to project realism in her films even while maintaining the format and the idiom of the commercial mainstream Hindi Cinema. What I like about Tanuja is the fact that she is a very obedient teacher who picks up the colloquial dialogues, which we tend to use in our day-to-day life. The comfort level I had as an actor was very evident when I worked with Tanuja in ‘Zindaggi Rocks’.”

Sushmita literally eulogizes Tanuja Chandra. “I think ‘Zindaggi Rocks’ is Tanuja's finest work till date. If you as an actor have a personal equation with Tanuja, half the battle is won on the sets. Tanu is a very good actor too and is very clear about what exactly she wants as a director from you as an actor. Technically Tanu is quite a progressive director and sets out to juxtapose between Close Ups as well as Cuts. Her strength is to give you several layers when you perform even when the scene is a silent one."

Sushmita is also full of praises for her producer Anurradha Prasad who she says gave Tanuja a free hand to extract the best out of all the performers in ‘Zindaggi Rocks’. “Anuradha is an experienced producer even though this is her first film as a producer because earlier she has to her credit several quality TV serials as a producer. ‘Zindaggi Rocks’ is a rocking film with women at the helm of affairs. If Anuradha is the producer, Tanuja is the director and Moushumiji and I are the actors. In fact Moushumiji has played a double role for the first time in her career stretching almost three decades. I could learn a lot after observing her at work at close quarters,” says Sush.

Sushmita readily admits that to a large extent, she could identify herself with the character of Kria that she has played in ‘Zindaggi Rocks’, which by the way is slated for release all over the world on October 6. Kria, according to Sushmita, is loud, mad, pathologically friendly, a musical genius, an extremely popular singer and also a woman who does not take "no" for an answer. Basically ‘Zindaggi Rocks deals with the mature love story between Kria who is a rock singer (who also has the responsibility of bringing up her twelve year old son, who is smarter than men who are twice his age) and Dr Sooraj Rihan, played by Shiney Ahuja whom she meets when she is admitted in his hospital.

Sushmita confesses that all that she did to get into the skin of her character was to question Tanuja and follow her instructions, of course at the same time using her natural instinct. “Whenever I tended to go off the track, Tanuja used to bring me back to the nuances of the character of Kria. Kria isn't just a rock-star because to her, being a rock star is just a way of life. Life is a celebration for her and the film has been narrated from the point of view of the doctor.”