Shalini Pandey, who is all set to make her Bollywood debut in the Ranveer Singh starrer "Jayeshbhai Jordaar", says she has always been confident of her physique and never paid attention to what people were saying about it.
Shalini, who shot to fame with her performance in "Arjun Reddy", says that she has never felt the pressure to look a certain way for the industry.
She said: "I have always been confident of my physique and I never really paid attention to what people were saying about it. I loved whichever phase I was in physically and never really put pressure on myself to be a certain body type."
She admits that women are unnecessarily scrutinised for how they look.
"I feel women are subjected to a lot of pressure to be a certain way physically and that's not right. So, I don't really look at this as a transformation. I look at it as a phase that has been achieved for how I needed to be seen on screen for my role. However, I'm happy about how I'm looking right now and feeling good in my head too," Shalini said.
She shared that she has been health conscious all her life.
The actress said: "I have mostly been a healthy eater almost all my life. I was always into sports and I started swimming since the 5th standard. I was into a lot of sports actually like badminton, volleyball and others. I was quite an outdoor kind of a kid. So yes, I have been a fitness freak ever since."
Talking about her weight loss, Shalini said: "For this particular weight loss, I got on a meal plan and luckily I was doing a film which required an immense amount of dance rehearsals that added to my weight loss.
"So, there is nothing specific that I did to shed my weight but I feel the meal plan worked really well. I was dancing for around four hours daily and that's a lot of cardio which helped me a lot."
Shalini is excited for her film "Jayeshbhai Jordaar" releasing on the big screen.
She says she is "relishing" the excitement to see her film release in theatres and isn't feeling the pressure of expectations. Ranveer has hailed Jayeshbhai to be a "miracle script".
As an artiste, Shalini is comfortable to always alter her body type to enhance her on-screen performances.
She said: "I'm an actor who invests a lot of energy and passion into every project that I pick. I want my performances to speak for itself and I would push myself into doing anything to deliver a performance that will hopefully be noticed and talked about. I have no issues with altering my body type if the script and my director wants me to look a certain way on screen."
The actress shared that there can be immense hormonal changes while transforming your body.
"You are putting your body under a lot of pressure when you are adding or shedding weight. However, I'd still go for it if the script demands it because if my character is required to be looking a certain way then why not. It will only help me deliver the most authentic performance on screen," she added.
