Sunny Leone determined to carve a career in Bollywood

Sunny Leone has long faced the wrath of India's social conservatives for her past, but she remains determined to carve a career in Hindi movies even as fresh controversy erupted this week.

(AFP)

Leone, said making the transition to Indian cinema had been difficult but she now felt at home in Bollywood.

The actress, whose real name is Karenjit Kaur Vohra, was born in Ontario, Canada to Indian Sikh immigrants in 1981.

(AFP)

She moved to India five years ago after a successful career as an adult actress, which included being named "Penthouse Pet of the Year" in 2003.

She got her first break in India in 2011 when she appeared on Celebrity Big Brother-inspired local reality TV show "Bigg Boss" before making her Bollywood debut the following year.

(AFP)

Leone has now appeared in more than eight Indian movies and is set to star in a risqué new comedy called "Mastizaade" (meaning "born out of mischief" in Hindi) which will hit screens on January 29.

Leone admits one of her toughest moments was when a woman filed a police complaint against her in Mumbai last year for "promoting obscenity and destroying Indian culture and society".

(AFP)

Police are obliged to register a case when such complaints are made and there have been reports of others.

"It's definitely something that did affect me. It was not fun at all," Leone said of the complaint.

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"Hopefully situations like that don't come up again because I'm not a part of that world anymore and I don't think it's fair to bring up things that have no merit at this point in time in my life."

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