Key Points

The actress took to Instagram, where she went on to share that at the age of just 15-16, she drew strength from visiting a red-light area, enabling her to tackle emotionally intense scenes, including the film's raw climax, which left a lasting impact.

She shared a couple of stills of her look from the film, which was directed by Shiv Kumar. It also stars Chunky Pandey and Neelam.

Sonam wrote: “Mitti Aur Sona is a movie closest to my heart… I played a college girl and a sex worker. Yes, challenging it was. I had to adapt the mannerisms of a college student and a girl who is moonlighting as a sex worker. I had a point to prove with this movie. How? I had no clue.”

She added: “I was usually associated with being sexy Sonam, wearing bikinis with gay abandon. This movie gave me a chance in my short but eventful career of less than 4 years to prove that I could act and look sexy too.”

The actress visited a red light area in a burka, saw the mannerisms of the young girls there revealed that her “heart was full of mixed emotions.”

“I even spoke to a few of them. I felt a great sense of grief, fear and protectiveness towards those young girls.”

The shoot was rather eventful too, shared the actress.

“I remember I had to do a scene in which I was wearing a skin colour short, strapless dress which gave a feeling that I wasn’t wearing anything, as the scene absolutely demanded that through camera lens & angles. At first, I was okay and then suddenly, I just burst out crying and refused to do the scene… I was just 15/16 years old,” she said.

The actress added: “After much cajoling in my makeup room, I went on the set and did the scene thinking & taking courage through the girls I had seen in the red light area a couple of moons ago… “

Talking about her “favorite song of the movie”, she said it is “‘Zindagi Mein Pheli Pheli Baar’ sung by the legendary late singer #latamangeshkar ji.”

“The last song of Mitti Aur Sona which was sung beautifully by our iconic, @asha.bhosle ji was shot with me wearing zero makeup. The shoot wrapped up of Mitti Aur Sona, which was the death scene again without makeup and was the climax of the movie. I started feeling very choked up.”

Sonam said: “I went home and cried a lot as I had so many emotions to vent out… my mom watched me in horror as she had never seen me crying like this. I styled my look for Mitti Aur Sona all by myself as I was obsessed with Madonna back then and even now. My co-actors @chunkypanday & #pran Saab were beyond helpful during the shoot.”

She concluded: “I shall always be grateful to @pahlajnihalani sir who gave me an author backed role. Sometimes in a leap of fate, I went from a scantily clad sex siren to proving that I can act too.”

- IANS