Kareena & Saif at the south asian carnival

Kareena Kapoor on the set of Dabboo Ratnani's photoshoot

Kareena Kapoor is shedding her glam image for the Hindi version of Stepmom after doing glamorous roles in films like Kambakkht Ishq.

Kareena Kapoor has been quietly attending acting workshops with the film's director, Siddharth Malhotra. "The last time I rehearsed for a part was for Vishal Bharadwaj's Omkara. But that was an unconventional film and I had to get into a milieu and character of which I knew nothing about. But Stepmom is urban and very contemporary. I play a very normal metro-centric working girl," she says.

Malhotra's film is inspired by director Chris Columbus's hit drama Stepmom, a tale of two women – divorced Susan Sarandon and the new woman (Julia Roberts) in her ex-husband's life – and the problems they face to find a common ground of understanding. And to attend the workshops, Kareena has been stealing time from the rehearsals of a song she began shooting with Aamir Khan for 3 Idiots. Through the workshops, Kareena Kapoor, who plays Julia's role, is discovering how difficult it is to play a normal girl. "I walk, talk, dress like an ordinary working girl. I'll be using no make-up," she says. Manish Malhotra, too, is trying to bring down Kareena's glamour quotient in this movie to make her look like an ordinary working woman. "I couldn't cut my hair as planned because of continuity clashes. But I'm going for a new hairstyle," said Kareena.