Freida Pinto's filming pains

Freida Pinto had so many issues that she fainted while training for her latest movie.

The actress stars as Elaheh in Desert Dancer, which is based on the true story of Afshin Ghaffarian, who risked his life to become a dancer in Iran even though it is banned there.

Freida had to put in a lot of physical effort to prepare for the part, which didn't come without its issues.

"Well, I trained and trained. I had to put in eight hours every day for one year. I got blisters and cuts and bruises and back problems... I was fainting and I was like, 'Oh my God, I can't do this,'" she recalled to British magazine Hello! "But in the end, it all worked out and the day I was actually performing, the day we were shooting the scenes, I had this energy from somewhere that I don't even know where it came from. It was the spirit of all these various dancers that kind of just empowered me to do this."

Taking the role was a no-brainer for Freida. As soon as she read the script she knew she wanted to be involved and her only regret is that the shoot couldn't take place in Iran. She was advised not to go due to the movie's subject matter, plus visas had already been problematic. Instead, the scenes were filmed in Morocco.

"Because of the story," she said, when asked why she wanted to appear in Desert Dancer. "It was for me very hard to believe - that there's a part of the world that was at one time culturally very, very rich but today there are so many basic cultural artistic freedoms that are taken away. The exploration of that part of the world was actually what made me really want to do this film."