Freida Pinto, our very own import to Hollywood, is hoping her new film Immortals repeats the success of Slumdog Millionaire for her. Immortals by Tarsem Singh is a 3D, epic-fantasy-adventure film. Though success has not been a steady partner, Freida has managed to make the world sit up and notice of her wherever she goes, and to Slumdog… goes all the credit.

“It is a bit of a whirlwind ride, and it's amazing what has happened so far. I think it has taken me almost a year-and-a-half to figure out what Slumdog… was all about. It just happened so fast to someone who had never seen a red carpet before,” says Freida about her post-Slumdog… days. “I've come to terms that this is what I've always chosen for myself, and now I have it. Instead of thinking of it as a dream, let's just embrace it and make the most of it. Also, the kind of films I have been part of are a good blend of independent and big-budget projects. It is great to be able to do a film such as Immortals and then follow it up with Trishna or Black Gold.”

Oracle priestess In Immortals, Freida plays Phaedra, an oracle priestess. “She's an extremely calm, Zen-like character; someone to whom words such as aggression don't exist. I did read up a lot about Phaedra, and different books said different things. At the end of the day, it was all confusing. So for me, it was great to read all of that for knowledge sake, but when it came to stepping on to the sets and getting into Phaedra's skin, it was Tarsem's vision,” she confesses.

Freida is all praise for director Tarsem Singh. “Tarsem's style is unique. It is very easy to work with someone like him. The vision that Tarsem had for this film was completely his own, and had nothing to do with anything I would have read in a book. So I kept myself from conceiving a personality for Phaedra, and relied on Tarsem's inputs. What's really interesting about working with Tarsem is he doesn't put you in a box; he wants you to understand his vision, but bring your own perspective to the work,” she says.

The director didn't want too much body movement in Phaedra. “We chatted about it and all he said to me was he wanted me to be as still as possible. So, there wasn't much twitching of the eyebrows and too much body movement. Since Phaedra was so contained and internalised, everything had to be expressed through the eyes,” Freida adds.

The most difficult part, says the actor, was to get under the skin of the character after every break in shooting. “The challenge was to constantly go back and forth into the character. I was not shooting every day, so I had to re-orient myself every time I returned to shoot after a break.”

Set in India After Immortals, Freida's next British drama film Trishna, which has her playing a Rajasthani woman, might see a year-end release. “The film is set in India, and is a modern take on a classic story (Thomas Hardy's “Tess of the d'Urbervilles”). It is about a young couple trying to make their relationship work despite their differing status and interference from their families. I found this family in Rajasthan, and I interacted with them, and drew a lot from their lives for the character of Trishna,” says Freida. “The women I've portrayed — say in Slumdog…, Miral, Trishna, are all somewhat troubled; there's helplessness in their situations. As an actor, it is interesting for me because it is so not me in real life.”

Freida recently shot for a campaign along with her mother for the very first time. Obviously thrilled about the development, Freida says: “It is for Emma Watson's campaign called ‘My Safe Place'. The campaign is against violence towards women. I feel honoured to be part of such an initiative and be able to spread this cause. Shooting with mom was great fun, I was in Mumbai for it, and we've had some great pictures.”