Her training for her role as boxer Mary Kom in an upcoming biopic on the Olympic medallist is so thorough that Priyanka Chopra can now actually box in high heels!
She gave a sneak-peek into her newly-acquired talent at an event here Thursday.
Dressed in a fitted lace dress and looking chic in a pair of stilletoes, the former Miss World looked confident as she took the stance of a boxer to show what she has learnt over the past few months.
"I've learnt boxing very well. I can box a bit in high heels too," she said, while showing the right way to raise an arm to hit and the other arm for defense.
Manipur-based Kom is a five-time world boxing champion and the only woman boxer to have won a medal in each one of the six world championships. She got her due after winning a bronze medal at the London Olympics.
"Playing Mary's character has been a wonderful experience. When people make biopics, they are mostly on deceased people or who have spent a chunk of their life. Mary is 33, and she is still a champion. So, it was a lot more difficult for me to play her.
"I am personally treating the film like the story of every girl who faces opposition to what she wants to do. Mary silence every other person who questioned her capability. So, it's actually like a lot of girls' story," said Priyanka, who clinched the Miss World title in 2000.
She was speaking at a special session at the India Today Group's Agenda Aaj Tak here.
The biopic on Mary Kom is being directed by Omung Kumar and is produced by Sanjay Leela Bhansali.
The actress says the project has been especially challenging because she was never keen on sports during her school days.
"I was never sporty. The only sport I used to play was basketball and that also because I was tall. I used to hate it. The Mary Kom film, in that sense, has been my most important film. It has been making my life upside down to play a character whose life is about sport. It's tough to act like a sportsperson, and so you have to learn it to play it right.
"I don't believe in dieting and gym, I am blessed with high metabolism. But for this particular film, I have done six hours of boxing each day, two hours of gym and eaten 'ghaas-phoos' (vegetables and salads). It's very hard for a Chopra," she quipped.