In the world of measured quotes, Vidya Balan is refreshingly different. She offers to be interviewed even as the make-up man struggles to touch up her looks. She is eager to talk about failure. After five consecutive flops, she returns with Kahaani 2 this week.
“I didn’t take a back seat,” she clarifies, as I try to form a cogent question. “My choices have always been responses to my state of mind; therefore I did the films that I did. I am very impatient. Unfortunately, they didn’t work. It is extremely disheartening and disappointing when a film doesn’t work. I put so much of myself into the film. Gussa aata hai . I feel like shouting and crying. I like to blame people, I like to blame myself. I analyse what I could have done differently. One has to go through those questions, and finally let go of that failure and move on. Because you will never be able to figure out why a film didn’t work.”
Really? “
Still, she feels there are no clear answers why Hamari Adhuri Kahaani didn’t work. The audience and critics didn’t want to see her playing a meek woman praying for the life of her husband/lover.
“It was heartbreaking for sure. I had questions about Vasudha before I took up the film but realised that I cannot restrict myself to playing only empowered women. If I play a weak character and she gathers courage by the end of the film; that is satisfying for me. By the end, she opts to let go of her selfish husband, and it was okay with me. She chose to move away and live on her own but she was not a rebellious woman. Such women exist around us.”
Coming to the Kahaani franchise, apart from shooting in Kolkata and Kalimpong, what has hooked Vidya is the complexity of the two characters: Vidya Bagchi and Durga Rani Singh. “The fact that there are two faces of me in the film made it very interesting. This woman is accused of kidnapping. Is she a mother or murderer or both? This is what defines the story.”
This is her third film in the thriller/spy space. Does it say something about the stories she likes to read? “I always enjoyed Ken Follett and John Grisham. I can’t digest serious fiction. I also like Danielle Steel. It is the same old romance and betrayal but I like her style.” One of the problems of playing the hero is that your expressions are minutely noticed. And perhaps heroines are not getting the leeway to repeat themselves the way heroes do.
“There is only one of me and how different can I look? You now know how Vidya Balan smiles and I can’t change my smile. I can’t say that, in this film, I will smile like Madhubala.”But what about the time she experimented with her looks? . The Dirty Picture was called an experiment but many felt that Vidya was going overboard in Ghanchakkar . “It is all about what succeeds but, as an actor, I am happy that I challenged vanity.
Coming back to the smile, what makes smile different is the context in which you see it. Here an actor and writer can work together. In Paa it may mean one thing, here the same smile may mean something else. One has to contextualise emotions.”
Vidya continues to veer towards strong characters. Her forthcoming films are Begum Jan and a biopic on Kamala Das . “ Image has never mattered to me. These are interesting stories and are interesting women who overcame odds. That’s what a hero does. Kamala Das led her life on her own terms and spoke fearlessly about female desires, fears and insecurities.”