In the last couple of years, Taapsee Pannu has emerged as a force to reckon with in the Hindi film industry. Once the glam-doll of Tamil and Telugu cinema, she is now the go-to girl for directors looking for actors who could play strong female characters. She could cry as well as Kareena Kapoor and could match Kangana Ranaut in showcasing irreverence to social taboos. Those who thought Pink was a one-off, had to eat their words as the actor followed it up with Soorma and Mulk. This week, the focus is on Taapsee again, as she plays a headstrong Rumi in Anurag Kashyap’s Manmarziyaan. You don’t have to be a film critic to note that there is a strong similarity between her characters in these films. Agrees Taapsee, “All of them have a strong spine. None of them has a frivolous attitude towards life. The common thread is that they are strong, opinionated girls. I pray that all strong female characters should come to me.”
The way she says this, you feel, you are watching her play Aarti or Minal. “I play on my honesty. Audience like me because they find me honest. That’s the reason (Anurag) Kashyap cast me in the first place in Manmarziyaan. Rumi is also very much like me. She talks like me and behaves like me. The pitch is one note higher because she is slightly immature. I still use my brain a little more. I think about the consequences,” grins Taapsee. “If she makes a mistake, she takes its hit on herself. My philosophy is also that if you have made a mistake, accept it, and move on.”
Unconventional love triangle
The narrative, she says, is different from the conventional love triangles. “Usually in love triangles, one boy turns out to be bad. Here both (played by Abhishek Bachchan and Vicky Kaushal) are equally good and both don’t want Rumi to change. They are variations of Ram, it is just that their personalities are different.” Vicky, she says, is more like her – “spontaneous”, while Abhishek is “more structured and believes in rehearsals.”
If she is more at home with playing Rumi and Aarti, how did she make peace with the hero-driven films in Tamil and Telugu cinema? “I was trying to find myself as an actor there. I have been very vocal about the fact that I didn’t want to be in this profession. I stumbled upon it, literally. But once I fell in love with it, I pursued it with passion. I didn’t know how to act but I was open to learning. I was not delusional that looks would help me sail through. Also, when you plan for something, you care about the results. When you don’t, you leave it to destiny. At one point, my idea of this profession was doing big films with big actors. And my first film in Hindi (Chashme Baddoor) was in that space”
But the David Dhawan film helped her understand the value of acting in her mother tongue. “On the first day of the shoot, I had a very uneasy feeling because I had never emoted in Hindi before that. By the second film, I started using it as a weapon.” Taapsee says expressing multiple emotions in one scene becomes easier when you are emoting in your mother tongue. “This reflects in the court scenes in Pink and Mulk. Once I found my sur, my choice of films in the south also changed. Now, I have started applying logic and will continue to do at least one film a year in the south.”
Starting from scratch
Interestingly, Taapsee maintains her experience down South didn’t help her in the Hindi film industry. “I had to start from zero despite the fact that I had put in as many hours and as much effort on the sets as any of the leading Hindi film actors. Even during big film events, I was treated like a nobody. I felt hurt because I was used to a certain kind of treatment. My presence was respected. Once when I got into a situation where I had to show the pass to get entry into a big Bollywood event, I felt that I have to do something to make a name here. I knew that all this recognition at events is part of the ripple effect of good work but the point is if you really want something, you get it.”
After Pink, she did Judwaa 2, which was in the space she had mastered down South. ‘The big actor, big film’ syndrome must have struck again? “Exactly, when I signed Mulk, I was advised to stick to the Judwaa space but I didn’t want to though this was my bread and butter. I told my advisers that I would send them DVDs of my South Indian films to show that this is all I have done. The respect that I got in the industry was because of Pink and Baby and it were these films that made me work hard. Here Judwaa was offered to me as a variation.” She signed Mulk despite everybody telling her not to. “Here ‘unconventional’ also has a fixed definition and for some reason Anubhav (Sinha and Rishi (Kapoor) sir were not fitting into it. But while reading the script, I felt like watching such a subject on screen. I have a quote on my room’s wall: When you want to have something that nobody has gotten before, you have to do something that nobody has ever done before. I will stick to unconventional themes.”
Having said that Taapsee doesn’t consider herself as a part of high IQ audience. “I don’t understand indie films. So, I won’t do such films. To me, a good film is one that can keep me engaged for two hours.” But Anurag Kashyap is considered as the spearhead of independent cinema? “Here, he has come to a more mainstream space. I told him that I have only watched his Dev. D and Gangs of Waaseypur. I asked him what was he thinking when he made Raman Raghav 2.0.” Too straightforward? “People think I have no filter, but I would like to believe that I have one. I can’t hurt people. I can hide the truth, but I can’t lie.” A tough trait to carry!