Pooja Hegde says her career hasn’t been ‘smooth sailing’, battled phase of no work: ‘Coming from non-film family, I have…’

“I am always excited for all my films. Coming from a non-film family, whatever has come to me I have made a career from that. I hope my story inspires somebody someday,” Pooja tells indianexpress.com as she gears up for the release of her upcoming Hindi feature, Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan.

The Salman Khan starrer is among the handful of Hindi films that Pooja has been a part of, starting from her 2016 Bollywood debut Mohenjo Daro, the multi-starrer comedy Housefull 4 and last year’s dud Cirkus.

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For someone born and brought up in Mumbai, with roots in Mangalore, Pooja Hegde says it wasn’t easy to dive into Tamil and Telugu films as there was a clear language problem. The actor recalls working tirelessly, mugging her lines, remembering the diction to perfect her dialogues. Today, she jokes, she can do a film in Spanish with the same technique.

“The first day I got my Telugu lines, I was like, ‘Ok, oh my God.’ I am a Mangalorean; we speak Tulu and Telugu is very different. So, when I got the lines, I had to mug them up, understand where to take pauses, have an assistant director say the lines, which I would record and keep playing on loop until I got the groove and have memorised. Now I can speak Telugu and feel if you give me 10 lines in Spanish, I would be able to learn it and emote it. It has made me a tougher actor for sure,” she adds.

Pooja says while she never felt “disoriented” working in Tamil and Telugu films, her initial years in the South film industry were “difficult”. It was all about finding her groove, landing on her feet and also going through failures. That phase, Pooja insists, has permanently grounded her.

“It was difficult in the sense that getting the right films took some time. My journey hasn’t been of someone who had one hit and what followed was smooth sailing. There have been highs and lows, there was a year when no work came to me and then suddenly work started flowing. I have seen all of that, which is why when today something is successful, I also remember the times when it wasn’t. That phase set me up to be the actor that I am today, because at that time when my films didn’t do well, I moved on, ushered through it.”

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Looking back at her decade long journey, the actor says her career so far has been a “roller coaster ride”. “I didn’t have overnight success. My ten-year journey has been a roller coaster ride. Once you get off that roller coaster ride, your hair is a mess, but you have had a great time and have that smile plastered on your face and you say, ‘Let’s do this again.’ This is exactly what I feel about my journey,” she adds.

Also starring Shehnaaz Gill, Raghav Juyal and Siddharth Nigam, Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan is scheduled to release on April 21.