Ranbir Kapoor's Besharam lady vanished from the spotlight after the film's debacle but Pallavi Sharda insists that the absence was not intentional. She had already started shooting for Bambai Fairytale and after the release of her debut film, she took off for a schedule in Gujarat, reports The Times of India.

Plus, there was her charity work and first international project. The Indo-Australian actress will play Anu Singh, a law school graduate who was tried for the murder of her boyfriend Joe Cinque. Anu was found guilty of manslaughter after a trial which was chronicled in Helen Garner's 2004 non-fiction book, Joe Cinque's Consolation-A True Story of Death, Grief and The Law.

"Our backgrounds are pretty similar since I'm an Indo-Australian who also went to law school but I've never wanted to kill anyone," says the actress, who is the only Indian in the cast of the Australian film which is expected to roll this year. Will she meet Anu? "That's the director's call. Even Helen didn't meet her. We are following the book closely. We may even go with the same title," says Pallavi.

Meanwhile, she's wrapping up Vibhu Puri's directorial debut which is the biopic of Shivkar Bapuji Talpade who constructed and flew India's first unmanned airplane in 1895. The original aircraft, named Marutsakha, has been reconstructed for this period film and although Pallavi hasn't flown in it yet, she describes the experience of sitting in it as "magical".

"It'll transport you to another era," says the actress who is playing a tamasha dancer from the 1890s, more involved in Talpade's creative experiment than one would expect. "I'm Ayushmann's (Khuranna) leading lady. It was a challenge to learn a form of dance very different from Besharam's Bollywood jhatkas."

Prod her on the Besharam experience and unlike her co-stars Ranbir Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh, who have since spoken out against the film, she surprises you by calling it a "positive experience" despite the bad reviews and dismal box-office performance.

"Today people know me because of the film," she says. "I was cast because the character's personality and background was quite like mine. My parents are from Delhi and I'm a Punjabi too. But I've learnt not to have any expectations."

Did she re-connect with the Kapoors after the film's release? "No, I haven't. They are busy people. But I have fond memories of them. They are a nice, normal family and foodies like me. I caught Ranbir trying to smuggle mishti doi from the Bengali restaurant we'd gone to for lunch," she laughs.

The film's director Abhinav Kashyap has been working on a script. If he offered her another role would she accept, given the rumours about a brewing romance between them which lead to him allegedly extending her role at the cost of the script?

"It's entirely up to him. I'd love to work with Abhinav and the team again. Since I wasn't giving many interviews, some people decided to put out their own content for the media. You just have to read the original script to know that my role wasn't extended. These rumours were upsetting. He's a family man and I sob every time I leave my parents in Melbourne. It was my dad who called to tell me that Abhinav and I were being linked but he knew there was nothing to it," she says.

And what about rumours that she was all set to pack up her bags and quit Bollywood after Besharam? "I don't think of myself as an actress stuck in one place but Mumbai is the home I come back to. Everything I own is in my apartment. I have fought hard to get where I am today. Why would I give it all up?" she asks, adding, "Acting is about being a character and living the moment. It's far more fun than the acting we do in real life."