Patcy N in Mumbai
If you've seen the trailer of Vivek Agnihotri's Hate Story, you'd know that this is one movie you cannot watch it with your parents.
Lead actress Paoli Dam obviously has no inhibitions in front of the camera.
The Bengali actress, who makes her Bollywood debut with this Vikram Bhatt production, has shed her clothes before in Bengali films like Chhtarak and Kaalbela (the latter starring Kahaani actor Parambrata Chatterjee).
'I am playing a lead role in a female-oriented film'
Vikram Bhatt spotted her in a Bengali film, and decided to cast her in his ambitious project Hate Story. When she first spoke to him, Paoli couldn't believe her luck.
'Why would I say no to this film? It's my first film in Bollywood, and I was playing a lead role in a female-oriented film, where the whole story revolves around me. The banner was big as well," Paoli justifies.
Set in the corporate world, the film has Paoli play an ambitious woman who's wronged by her own mentor, so she sets out to seek revenge. What follows, rather strangely, is her transformation into a hooker to destroy her nemesis.
'I was happy with the way I looked even though the process was tough'
It was difficult for Paoli to shift to Mumbai from Kolkata during the film's shoot, as she had never stayed away from home for too long.
"I come from a family who is very fond of eating! When I came here, I was asked to give up food and undergo rigorous training thrice a day," she said.
She went through a lot of mental and physical struggle while she prepared for her role and lost almost 10 kilos in just two and a half months.
"I was shocked when I saw myself in the mirror but I was happy with the way I looked even though the process was tough," she said.
'Everything was tough for me'
I stayed in Mumbai alone. I felt like an outsider since it was a different city with a different culture. I felt like an alien! Even though I had my production team with me, I craved for my house and my parents. I went through many sleepless nights," she said.
Paoli's other drawback was that she did not know Hindi well.
"Everything was tough for me -- my look in the film, my dialogues, the script... The assistant director Rohit helped me a lot. I think I made his life hell in order to get my dialogues right!" she laughs.
'Why will I have any inhibitions in front of the camera?'
There are four distinctive looks for me in the film," Paoli claims, explaining her skimpy outfits in Hate Story.
She adds that she was comfortable with participating in the film's intimate scenes. "Nudity is in the mind, not in the body," she explains, adding, "I don't mind doing bold scenes if it is necessary in the film, like in this case."
In fact, that was one of the reasons director Vivek Agnihotri cast her in this film.
"Vivek asked me whether I would have any inhibitions in front of the camera and I said no, as I am an actor. Why will I have any inhibitions in front of the camera?" says Paoli, who incidentally has a masters degree in chemistry.
'If the scene is shot aesthetically, my parents won't have any problem'
Paoli doesn't mind even if the entire crew is present while shooting for the bold scenes, as against the norm in other films where a minimal crew stays on when an intimate scene is being shot.
"The crew is like my family -- they are like my father, mother and brother -- so there is no problem in shooting those scenes in front of them," she says.
How does her family react when she shoots intimates scenes in barely-there clothes? "I am an actor in a Bollywood film. If the scene is shot aesthetically, they won't have any problem," she says.
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