By Jilawatan

The lukewarm response to her recent Hollywood release Pink Panther-II has had Aishwarya Rai Bachchan(35) conceding her position.

As the most popular face of Bollywood in the West to the new international craze 24-year-old Freida Pinto (Slumdog Millionaire) who according to reliable sources has been signed for two films-one with Woody Allen and the second with Julian Schnabel.

Freida, who is said to have earned over two million pounds, overtaking Bollywood beauties like Aishwarya, Kareena Kapoor and Katrina Kaif is also, according to a world film distributor being wooed to walk the red carpet at Cannes in May 2009.

On the Bollywood front, Kareena Kapoor (28) has nudged Aishwarya Rai Bachchan out of the Filmfare Top-10 Power list. But a producer from Chennai confirms that Ash is still the highest paid Indian actress and has reportedly been paid a fee of Rs six crore for Shankar’s Robot where she is cast opposite Rajnikant.

By Jilawatan

She was last seen with Steve Martin in Pink Panther 2 is now busy wrapping up films back home. CNN-IBN catches up with Aishwarya Rai in Hyderabad on the sets of Shankar’s new film and gets the former Miss World talking about her unconventional romantic films with hubby Abhishek Bachchan and working with Tamil star Rajinikanth.

: Ash, what’s interesting about the films that you are doing with your husband Abhishek after marriage is that none of them is a conventional, pure romantic film. Sarkar Raj – just when a hint of a relationship began – ended, and in Mani Ratnam’s Ravan, it’s almost a forbidden relationship. Is that much more fun than a typical romantic film – which you both have done before?

Aishwarya Rai: We’d love to do it several times, trust me, we’d love to. We’d love to do an intense romantic film the conventional way as well. (laughs) But we’re glad the directors are coming with subjects and characters and…