Remember the lovely lass Pooja Batra, the Virasat girl who played girlfriend of Anil Kapoor in the movie. The movie was a big hit but Pooja got lost somewhere in the middle.

Now the lady is back with a bang. She has got the role of scheming Queen Noorjahan in Akbar Khan’s dream project ‘Taj Mahal - An Eternal Love Story’. And of course she is very exited who is looking forward to her second innings in tinsel town.

“I have slogged for this character,” Pooja quips from her cozy Los Angeles home. “Lots of research has gone into the making of Noorjahan. I even watched ‘Cleopatra’ a couple of times, so as to get a hang of the royalty,”

Batra explains. Her hard work included browsing through historical literature to better understand the nuances of the characters. “Noorjahan was a ravishing empress, she is also learnt to be scheming. She is an intriguing personality so I wanted to be cautious while developing her character” she elaborates.

If that wasn’t painstaking enough, she was given lessons to improve her Urdu diction. Besides doing research to go into the skin of the character, she also had confabulations with eminent historians.

At last, all her efforts seem to have paid off - as those who have seen the promos can’t help but remember her as the conniving Queen.

Even director Akbar Khan has praise for her “I always knew, Pooja would do justice to this negative role, but hadn’t realized, she would surpass my expectations. The girl is finally headed for a lot of critical acclaim and awards too”.