She played a character called Shalini who returns home to a small town in somewhere in India, completing her university, and gets involved in the local politics.
"She is a very angry passionate young girl. She doesn't know how to be a well-behaved girl. She is extremely intellectual and she is extremely angry about how life works here and that she fights, which in turn lands her in trouble," Kalki told.
The actor made her debut with her husband filmmaker Anurag Kashyap's film "Dev D" in 2009.
She maintained that though she knew about the film from its first scratch, she was roped in late.
"It happened bit late. I knew about this film for some time but they hadn't finalised on me," said Kalki.
The shooting of "Shanghai" is on at Latur in Maharashtra.