Aishwarya Rai Bachchan wants Hindi cinema to think about “the silent question”: Why aren’t there more roles like Nandini from Ponniyin Selvan?

At the 76th Cannes film festival in France, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is once again making headlines and turning heads with her stunning looks. The actress first attended the Cannes Film Festival in 2002 with the film “Devdas” and has been a constant since then. This year, she came to the festival, riding high on the success of the Ponniyin Selvan films, directed by Mani Ratnam, in which she plays the role of Nandini. Speaking to Anupama Chopra from Film Companion, who asked her why Hindi cinema isn’t offering the actor such roles, Aishwarya replied, “Well, that’s a silent question I think all creative people end up asking.” Acknowledging that there’s a shortage of complex roles for actors, particularly “leading ladies” as Aishwarya put it, she said, “There’s a reason we salute directors like Mani (Ratnam) and others like him.” She further said, There are directors who create work like this and that’s why it’s such a pleasure for us as artists to work with them and to come away with movies like this, where we are proud of the work we have done. We feel immensely satisfied during the creative process and then of course, with the reaction and the response of the audience. Ponniyin Selvan: II has definitely been immensely satisfying for all of us and we are so grateful and overjoyed with the response. I’m extremely thankful and happy.”

Speaking to Film Companion about her experience of working with the legendary filmmaker Mani Ratnam and how he’s able to tap into something that many filmmakers can’t, Aishwarya said, “Mani, because he has worked with me so often, he’s always like, ‘You can do it’.” On her own working process during the Ponniyin Selvan films, she said, “I’m always on sets with my notebook, looking like a student working on my dialogues and these were in Tamil, which was a different language for me, so I would constantly work on it and see how I would play the dialogue out.”

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The global star also shared her thoughts on women empowerment in cinema and poured her heart out saying, “In an ideal world, there shouldn’t be reason to have to try so hard where we collectively have to work at bringing more attention to the fact that we women do belong, we exist, we make our mark and contribute very strongly in all the aspects of filmmaking. It’s about being feminine and a feminist. At the end of the day, if we together stand by women and work towards strengthening their empowerment, so be it let’s take that step.”

Iconic indeed!

On the work front, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan will be next seen in an Indian Tamil-language action comedy titled “Jailer” alongside superstar Rajinikanth.

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