Page 6 - August 2020 Digital

When it comes to her movie choices, Vidya Balan says VIDYA
she pays to heed only to her inner voice and doesn’t
let advice from others influence her course of action.
Since her Bollywood debut in 2005 with Parineeta, BALAN
the 41-year-old actor has picked projects like Ishqiya,
No One Killed Jessica, Kahaani and The Dirty Picture
which at that time were considered unusual.
Her last solo outing Tumhari Sulu was a tale of a ON
woman who discovers her ambition after years of
marriage and a child.
“I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I only pay heed
to my inner voice. I don’t pay much attention to the
advice other people give me if it is contradictory to
what I feel very strongly. I felt like I want to do this, and

so I did it. Though Vidya comes with an experience of doing
“As an actor, I am greedy to play different women on a biopic in the past, having played south actor Silk
screen, to live different lives. When I’m getting the
Smitha in The Dirty Picture, she said the toughest part
opportunity, I grab it with all my might,” said Vidya
Shakuntala Devi features Vidya in the titular role of the about Shakuntala Devi was to get her mannerism
mathematical wizard, who was known for her ability to
and energy right.
make incredibly swift calculations.
Shakuntala Devi’s genius was first discovered at the “The most interesting and challenging part of
the biopic was doing the math shows. For her, it
age of five when she solved a math problem for
Thankfully, I didn’t have to work out the answers but I
18-year-old students. happened naturally, she was a genius and was gifted.
had to enjoy the numbers in a way and interact with
people the way she did. She had this attitude towards
maths that it was magic. I had to feel that to be able
to perform that. The way she gave her answers, it
had a certain elan, swag. I had to work on that,” she

added.
The film is directed by Anu Menon, who has also co-
written the screenplay with Nayanika Mahtani.
Vidya said the movie doesn’t dramatize the story of
Shakuntala Devi as she already lived a fulfilling life.
“When you’re telling a story, sometimes you take
those creative liberties and that’s absolutely fine. If it
was a very staid account of a person’s life, maybe a
documentary form should be used. But in Shakuntala
Devi’s case, we didn’t have to dramatize anything.
It had everything. She was an exciting, livewire
personality who lived a fulfilling life. Therefore, we
didn’t have to dramatize anything,” she added.

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