Confident Preity says will hold her own on world tour with Bachchans

By Shilpa Jamkhandikar

MUMBAI (Reuters) - There are few celebrities in Bollywood who can face up to the collective might of the Bachchan family and yet not feel awed -- Preity Zinta is one of them.

The actress is currently on a 40-day tour with the Bachchans -- Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek and Aishwarya -- taking part in a singing and dancing extravaganza staged in 11 cities across North America, Europe and the Caribbean.

Zinta said she knows having the Bachchan tag for the tour helps.

"I have my own sensibility and I am confident of myself as an actor and a person. I am also sensible enough to know that when there are three Bachchans on a tour, people are going to talk about it much more than anyone else," Zinta told Reuters.

Zinta was not part of the original line-up announced for the Unforgettable Tour but was roped in after Lara Dutta and Bipasha Basu opted out.

"It doesn't matter who's been on and off. What excited me was that the Bachchans were going and that different actors were coming on in different parts of the world and that’s a treat to the audience,” said the 33-year-old actress.

Zinta is confident the three-hour shows would also appeal to Westerners.

"It’s not just the Indian audiences any more and that's the beauty of our cinema. The last show I did, there were people from Marrakesh, Africa, Germans, French. Our cinema has opened doors to different countries. It’s not the conventional Hindi audience any more."