Pallavi Sharda plays tamasha dancer in 'Bambai Fairytale'

Pallavi Sharda

Actress Pallavi Sharda is all set to show her dancing skills in her next project 'Bambai Fairytale', a biopic on popular Maharashtrian scientist Shivkar Bapuji Talpade.

The 26-year-old Indo-Australian actress, who has been away from the silver screen after last year's release 'Besharam', is playing a tamasha dancer from the 1890s in the film.

"I am a trained classical dancer and have performed extensively all over the world in many dance forms. The dance in 'Bambai Fairytale' is one of the folk traditions of Maharashtra and used to be a major part of the society's culture in 1890.

"It was difficult to find out the mannerism of the female dancers and the kind of audience during that era. I have tried to keep it as earthy and real as possible," Pallavi told in an interview.

Directed by debut filmmaker Vibhu Puri, the film narrates the journey of the legendary scientist who constructed and flew India's first unmanned airplane in 1895. 'Vicky Donor' star Ayushmann Khurrana is playing Bapuji Talpade in the period film.

"To recreate the era of 1890s in the film was a challenge. Vibhu did a lot of research work for it. There was no research material, no documented evidence on his life. So, Vibhu insisted that we should keep it real," she said. The film is being shot in Gondol, a little town in Gujarat where art directors have built a Mumbai that existed when Bapuji Talpade dreamt of first airplane much before the Wright brothers' Wright Flyer.

In the biopic, Pallavi is paired opposite Ayushmann and the actress says he is an extremely talented actor. "It's been lot of fun to shoot the film with him. We are currently shooting the last leg of the film. It's very interesting to see his process of delivering his shot. He is one of the best actor I have worked with," she said.

After shifting base to Mumbai, Pallavi, a law graduate, was first spotted by Karan Johar and got a dream start as a cameo in the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer 'My Name is Khan'.

Soon after, she went on to play the leading role opposite Manoj Bajpayee in 'Dus Tola'. She also did an Australian comedy 'Save Your Legs' and became the first ever actress of Indian descent to perform in a leading role in mainstream Australian cinema. "I love to play various characters on-screen. If you will see my career graph, you will not get any character similar to other be it a upper middle-class Punjabi in 'Besharam' or a poor girl in 'Dus Tola'.

People always say that they couldn't recognise me in my next film. It's a conscious decision to bring variation in the roles," she said. The actress also bagged her next Australian project, which is based in Helen Garner's 2004 non-fiction book 'Joe Cinque's Consolation-A True Story of Death, Grief and The Law'.