'My character Shama looks like a wounded deer, but she is very creative, makes pottery, plays the violin, she is extremely engaged with life instead of running away from life,' she explained.

She admits she was nervous when she took up the role in the film simply because she wasn't familiar with the language.

'I was very nervous about the language. Marathi is a very rich language and I have read a lot of Marathi stories translated into Hindi or Bengali. Their literature is rich like Bengali and Malayalam. I was really nervous. But my friends in the Marathi industry like Mohan Agashe and Jabbar Patel assured me it was light.

'While working on the film, I didn't have any problems as I used to take the dialogues before. But then there were few dialogues for my role. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to do it. Because I don't believe you can pick up a language so fast,' she said.

It is after 30 years that she has teamed up with Amol and says it was a pleasure working with him and that his style of filmmaking suits her temperament. The last time they shared screen space was for a Bengali film 'Mother'.

After 'Samaantar', Sharmila has just one more movie titled 'Life Goes On' - a bilingual movie by debut director Sangeeta Dutta. In this one too she features with veterans like Girish Karnad and Om Puri.

'Then I will be on a total break,' she said.