For research on her role, Shweta Basu Prasad (who plays a prostitute named Mehrunnisa) along with the director of the film Madhur Bhandarkar visited Kamathipura, the red light district of Mumbai, where she met sex workers over there and learnt a lot about their mannerisms and lingo which she later incorporated in her own performance.
Shweta Basu Prasad claims her performance was heavily influenced by films which she had grown up watching, particularly Sharmila Tagore's Mausam (1975), Smita Patil's Mandi (1983) and Kareena Kapoor's Chameli (2004).