Pooja Bhatt returns to acting to break taboo surrounding women's alcoholism

After an absence of 15 years from the big screen, Pooja Bhatt is set to turn actor once again for a script her father Mahesh Bhatt has 'gifted' her, reports Times of India.

The 43-year-old actress, who was last seen in Rahul Bose's Everybody Says I'm Fine, is ending her hiatus with a role of an alcoholic actress in her forties, who feels remorse for abandoning her child to make it big in showbiz.

Bhatt says that she was drawn to the character because it is different from today's female characters that are "asexual, dead, with no charm".

"I'm wildly excited because there's not enough representation of women of a certain age in our cinema today. Roles were more powerful 20-30 years ago," she said.

"In most societies, and particularly ours, a man who has abandoned his child is given a second chance. But if it's the mother who has disowned the baby, she is seen as aberration, a bi*** and evil. We want to change that script," she added.

She went on to point on that "alcohol is another vice an Indian woman can't own up to. We are going to break that taboo too in our film. It's a heartbreaking human story that gave me gooseflesh I had not felt in many years."

The shoot of the untitled film will begin this year, and Pooja will divide her time between acting and directing her upcoming films, Cabaret and Jism 3.