Vanessa Hudgens has revealed she stayed in a homeless shelter while researching a role.

“The girl who my character is based off of, she was living in the shelter,” the Disney star revealed on The Tonight Show.

“So I actually got to go and live in the shelter for a couple of weeks before I started filming and get to know her and her story.”

“It was amazing,” Vanessa said of her experience. “I’m so grateful I was able to go and spend time [with her].”

With cropped hair and a nose piercing, Hudgens is almost unrecognisable in the film, called Gimme Shelter, which also features Brendan Fraser and Rosario Dawson.

“It’s a story about a young girl, she’s 16, she comes from a broken family, never met her dad, mum’s an abusive drug addict and she decides that she wants to take her life into her own hands,” explained the former High School Musical singer.

“It’s a movie about some serious, serious stuff that’s going on in the world.”