Shedding her glamorous image and donning a new hat actress Pooja Gandhi will be seen playing a bold and a performance-oriented role in the much-anticipated film, Dandupalya. “As an actor, there is always this quest for something different, and that’s what I finally found in this film. I play the role of Lakshmi, a construction worker, who was the main conspirator of the most notorious gang of murderers in Karnataka, called the Dandupalya gang,” says Pooja, who is happy to break the girl next door image, that she is seen playing in most films. It was not an easy decision, “I took a while to decide if I wanted to take up the role. It has been highly challenging, but rewarding at the same time,” she says, explaining, “I had to do without a moisturiser for a few months, had to walk barefoot on locations, had to get a good tan — all to look more like Lakshmi.”

The actress had to spend a lot of time researching the character, “From watching videos, her body language, her way of walking and talking, I took my time gathering information. She was so much of a man, it was hard to impersonate such a merciless, hard-faced woman,” says Pooja, who even had to smoke a lot of bidis and chew on paan, through the film.

Talking about the controversial picture that’s doing the rounds, where she is spotted baring her back, Pooja says, “That’s a torture scene, where cops interrogate me. The scene demanded a realistic composition; I had no qualms doing it. I was not nude, I was clad in a saree. It’s not a glam scene, I don’t know why it’s even hyped so much.” Comparing the situation to Bollywood, she says, “Vidya Balan has done justice to Dirty Picture. Though there was nudity, the performance is what matters in the end.”

The actress enjoyed working with her co-stars, “We often looked at ourselves during shoots and laughed about how odd we looked and behaved to suit our roles. It was good working with Makarand Deshpande, he is a talented actor,” she says.

Having celebrated her sister’s birthday on January 1, Pooja is taking her long overdue break. “I’m going to a hill station. I’m a very ‘mountain’ person. There is no technology, phones and no television where I’m heading to — that’s blissful and that’s what I’m looking forward to.”

The movie Dandupalya is due to release in February.