Freida Pinto stars in the hot, intense new film entitled 'Trishna,' based on the Thomas Hardy's novel, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, but set in present-day India. The film follows a village girl as she battles with her traditional lifestyle and dreams of living like a contemporary India girl. Pinto sat down with the New York Daily News to talk about her character. 

Pinto plays Trishna, who is the daughter of a auto-rickshaw driver who falls in love with a wealthy young man. 

"I guess the journey is very beautiful and at the same time very tragic because it goes from being really innocent to being in a situation of almost desperation and finally redemption," Pinto said to the publication.

Zap 2 It reports that Trishna becomes the victim of rape and delivers an unhealthy baby who ends up dying. She later has to confess to her fiance that she had been raped. The news brings great trouble to their relationship. 

"It's quite an intense journey for one girl to go through," Pinto told IANS over the phone from New York.

Pinto admits that the role of Trishna was difficult "because it's so different from what I am in real life." 

"Now as an actor who is very outspoken, it was very tough and again such a welcome challenge," Pinto said. "The bottom line came down to 'whatever dad thinks is probably right and we'll just follow that or whatever our future husband thinks is right is going to be our life from then on.' And that for me was the startling reality that I had to just come to terms with to understand my character better."

"Trishna," also starring Anurag Kashyap, opened in theatres in July 13. 

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