Just look at Freida Pinto's life in the past four years. She got a huge break in Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire. She followed it up with film projects with Woody Allen (You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger), Julian Schnable, (Miral), Tarsem (Immortals) and Rupert Wyatt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes). In four years, Pinto has become one of the most recognisable Indian faces in the world -- from a L'Oreal model to appearing on major talks shows to the covers of celebrity and fashion magazines.

Her latest film -- Trishna, directed by the prolific British filmmaker Michael Winterbottom, and based on the 19th century novel Tess of d'Urbervilles had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2011. Trishna opened in limited release in the US last week. Pinto spoke to Aseem Chhabra about the challenges of playing a character first visualized by Thomas Hardy and how she got where she is today.

Image: Freida Pinto
Photographs: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images