Ram Gopal Varma makes the Dev D actor hold the camera and shoot some of her sequences in his new film, based on the infamous Neeraj Grover murder case

Mahi Gill, who is playing Maria Susairaj -- the Kannada actor, who is in jail for allegedly aiding her boyfriend and former Navy officer Jerome Mathew in murdering a television executive -- just picked up a new skill.

The actor whose performance in Anurag Kashyap's Dev D won her rave reviews, plays Susairaj in Ram Gopal Varma's Not A Luv Story. Gill not just acts in the film, she also shoots a few of its sequences.

Gill has been made to hold the camera, as she runs through the apartment in the film where the murder has occurred. Varma is shooting the film in the same building in Malad where Susairaj lived. While Susairaj lived in apartment No. 201 on the second floor, the film is being shot in apartment No. 1501 on the 15th floor.

Varma made Gill hold the camera and film herself since he wanted the audience to get as close to her character as possible. No actor in a feature film has ever held the camera and shot himself. Gill is, predictably, traumatised.

"It is bizarre. I feel I am actually re-living the murder at the actual scene of the crime. The murder occurred on the second floor and we're not only in the same building, but directly above the apartment on the 15th floor.

So our apartment is just like the one where the actual murder took place. It's a very cramped place. And to shoot in it is not easy, " she said.

Adding to her discomfort is the fact that this is an all-male crew. "There is not a single woman in the cramped apartment. I am enacting some of the most horrific scenes with an all-male crew." Apparently the crew and neighbours have even begun to call her Maria.

On Sunday, Gill will shoot the actual scene of the crime. "We will recreate the gruesome murder."

According to police reports, on May 7, 2008, Susairaj opened the door of her apartment to Mathew, while the victim, Neeraj Grover was in her bedroom. Mathew allegedly stabbed Grover killing him, and the duo disposed the body in Manor forest near Thane, after cutting it to pieces and stuffing it into a bag. The case is being heard in court.