Hariprriya joins the list of heroines who have taken on roles with negative shades, with her upcoming film Samhaara, in which she is paired opposite Chiranjeevi Sarja. While this will be her third film in a row to be released in 2018, the actor is excited about getting into those bad girl shoes. “Sometimes it is good to be bad ... for onscreen purpose,” she chuckles, and adds, “I took on this role so as to broaden my acting skills.”

She mainly drew inspiration from Ramya Krishnan. “I was awestruck watching her as Neelambari, one of her best roles,” she says.

Hariprriya, who is often seen playing the girl-next-door, learnt the knack of playing negative roles during filming. “Usually, my facial expression is very calm, and expressing those sarcastic smirks was tough. I had to work hard to play a negative role. I even had to work with my looks - the nose pin and bindi, which I wear throughout the film, became plus points.” But once she got hold of the role, she says it was all fun. “I enjoyed it because I’m nothing like my character in real life. I should thank the few directors and writers who allow me to experiment, and don’t try to typecast me.”

Usually, when a hero faces off with the villain, it ends up in a physical fight, but here, it’s a revenge drama between the hero and heroine. “Even I fight, but without punches. I remember telling Arjun Sarja that I wanted to do a film that had me doing fighting sequences, but it did not work out with either Arjun nor Dhruva Sarja. However, with Chiru, I did get that opportunity to do some action. Though not a typical fight scene, there is definitely some amount of action between the leading man and woman. Stuntman Ravi Verma has got me doing some back flips, and yoga helped me with every shot.”

Between good and bad, the latter often fails, so will this Hariprriya’s case in Samhaara? “Just three days to go for the release, so it is better we let people go to theatre and watch how my character ends up in the film,” she says.