“Am A Bit Nervous, As I Start The Prep For Shakuntala-Devi-A Human Computer With A Wicked Sense Of Humour” : Vidya Balan

Chaitanya  Padukone

While it has been Vidya Balan’s prerogative to play strong woman-centric roles as in ‘The Dirty Picture’ and more recently in ‘Tumhari Sullu’ she has “thoroughly enjoyed” her role of a  senior scientist ‘Tara Shinde-- the project director’ mentoring a women-centric team  in  ‘Mission Mangal which releases on Aug. 15^th. Enthuses the exuberant Balan, “Besides the patriotic pride and the jubilation of the successful mission, the movie ‘Mission Mangal’ also goes to explode the conventional Indian myth that ‘females are only meant to look good, they should only be seen and not heard’. Also how my dynamic home-maker-cum-scientist character Tara resorts to recycling a simple household cooking-frying ‘puris’ micro-process to enable a mega-space-mission to fall in place,” smiles Vidya.  Was it true that ‘prankster’ Akshay Kumar made her a ‘Bakara’  of his naughty antics during the ‘Mission Mangal’ shoot?  She responds with, “Haanjee, we all know that Akshay has this naughty habit, but nobody realizes as when he does it so discreetly.

Either he would tightly tie-up our saree-pallus , so when we got up we would be tugging at each other. Or he would tie cutlery like spoons and plates to the pallu of my saree. But it was all done by Akshay to ensure vibes of cheerful camaraderie on the sets and minimize the stress,” chuckles Vidya who will start shooting for her next bio-pic of legendary mathematics wizard Shakuntala Devi. “ Since we start shooting next month I have started prepping but I am a bit jittery.  What I realised was that Shakuntala Devi was a ‘super-human computer with a wicked sense of  humour’, but it will be yet another creative challenge that I have to ‘figure out’, literally. Because I will be dealing with numbers and figures,” she shrugs . As a parting shot she shares, “In future I will also be playing Indira Gandhi in the proposed web-series, the scripting-structure is taking its own long time. At the same time, I am happy Kangana is playing the iconic ‘Jayalalitha’,  and I leave it at that,” she signs off.

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Tags: Bollywood, Bollywood News, Bollywood Updates, Television, Telly News, Shakuntla  Devi, Biopic, Vidya Balan, Mission Mangal