For years, Vidya Balan had maintained a safe distance from films outside of Hindi cinema. Right at the start of her career, after a Malayalam film Chakram opposite Mohanlal was shelved, she was superstitiously singled out as the reason, leading to over a dozen films dropping her even before the shooting began. This wave was not only limited to Malayalam, but also extended to Tamil cinema, where she was replaced in films like R Madhavan’s Run (2002) and Srikanth’s Manasellam (2003) among others.
Over two decades after her striking Bollywood debut in Pradeep Sarkar’s 2005 period romance Parineeta, Vidya has finally stepped foot into Tamil cinema, playing Kantha, one of the many antagonists in Nelson Dilipkumar’s new action thriller Jailer 2. Prior to this, she’s only had a special appearance opposite Ajith in H Vinoth’s 2019 courtroom drama Nerkonda Paarvai, the Tamil adaptation of Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury’s 2016 hit Pink. “That was just one song and a couple of scenes. I’d shot for it over a period of only five to six days. Here, I’ve shot far more,” says Vidya in an exclusive interview with SCREEN.
Of course, in the course of the past two decades, Jailer 2 isn’t the first Tamil film offered to Vidya — In fact, it’s not even the first Rajinikanth film offer. “That it’s a Rajinikanth film is one of the biggest factors of me doing Jailer 2 because a few years ago, I missed doing a film with him. My dates were clashing with another film I was doing. But this time, when I was offered, I was like, ‘I can’t say no,”” she says. Hailing the first part, Jailer (2023), as “exciting and entertaining through and through”, the actor is all praise for the director. “I thought Nelson is a fantastic director who brings in humour at the most unexpected moments. So, I was open to it, and when I heard the role, it was damn interesting. It ticked all the boxes,” she adds.
Vidya Balan and Rajinikanth in Jailer 2.
In the trailer, Vidya is seen intimidating Rajinikanth’s beloved character Muthuvel Pandian, even blowing cigarette smoke all over his face. As a Tamilian who’s grown up on a steady diet of Rajinikanth movies, shooting that scene was no cakewalk. To make matters worse, this was the first time she was smoking on screen in 15 years since Milan Luthria’s 2011 period drama The Dirty Picture. So, her body had a reaction, and her hand began to tremble. “Oh my god! This has to happen today of all the days!,” Vidya recalls thinking. “More than anything, I was so embarrassed that it was happening in the first take, and that too in front of him,” she adds, but admits the veteran actor was “very sweet” about it.
Vidya confesses she assumed smoking is like “riding a bicycle” — you can pick it up anytime if you’ve learnt it once. “I don’t know if it was inhibition. But it was my body having a reaction because the nicotine hit me. Then I began to get stressed because I had to steady my hand. So, I had a physical reaction. Of course, I was conscious that I was blowing smoke in his face, but I’m not shy about smoking on screen. It was just that my body wasn’t used to it,” says Vidya. As promised to Rajinikanth, the next time she had to shoot a smoking scene, she actually rehearsed it in the morning. “I sat in a corner of the set, and like how you learn your lines, I was smoking and checking if my hand was trembling. It was quite funny,” she recounts, laughing.
The long road to her Tamil cinema debut
Vidya also admits she’s enjoying embracing dark shades on the big screen. Her character of Kantha comes just five months after her key role of Badi Beghum in Riteish Deshmukh’s Marathi period action epic Raja Shivaji. “I absolutely love being badass,” she says, letting out that signature full-bellied laugh. “Forget anyone else, it bored me to play the good girl. I just think that’s very unidimensional,” she says. Calling herself a “greedy” actor, she said language is no bar any longer for her. “Even in Raja Shivaji, it was a small role. But I was happy with how Riteish envisioned and presented Badi Beghum. It was the first time I was playing a conniving woman. I enjoyed that,” she says.
After Raja Shivaji (Marathi) and Jailer 2 (Tamil), Vidya has a Hindi film releasing this year, where she reunites with Akshay Kumar and director Anees Bazmee. “My dream is to do films in all the Indian languages overtime. But definitely because I’m a Tamilian, I’m excited about Jailer 2. I’m also ready for this. I had a lot of misses in both Malayalam and Tamil films at the beginning of my career. I was replaced even before the shooting because of that whole ‘jinx’ thing. So, for a while, I wasn’t mentally open to doing films in any language, but Hindi. But overtime, I’ve matured and realized that was just the time. It doesn’t have to do with anything else. And as an actor, we’re hungry to do good roles,” explains Vidya.
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Vidya Balan as Badi Beghum in Raja Shivaji.
She keeps invoking her faith in “divine timing” while referring to her journey so far. Whether it’s the bumps at the start of her career or the missed opportunities of starring alongside Rajinikanth in the near past, Vidya believes “whatever happens happens for the best”. That’s why even though she’s been discussing a reunion with R Balki for years now, it’s finally happening with a Tamil film that she’s shooting for currently. “I love Balki’s style of storytelling. His ideas are always so out-of-the box. The fact that he and I are doing a Tamil film together says it’s out-of-the-box. I’m enjoying being directed by Balki again after all these years. I’ve waited for this,” says Vidya.
Her solo lead debut in Tamil will reunite her with Balki 17 years after their 2009 dramedy Paa and seven years after Jagan Shakti’s 2019 workplace drama Mission Mangal, which Balki co-wrote and co-produced. “Of course, we’re different people from what we were in 2009, and yet it feels seamless. There’s a certain casualness in the way the characters speak. I love the way he writes and directs,” says Vidya. She attributes the same divine timing for not being able to make her solo lead debut with AL Vijay’s Thalaivii (2021), the biopic of former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa. “I don’t have any regrets, thankfully. At that point, it didn’t make sense to me,” she argues.
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One of the key reasons Vidya opted out of Thalaivii — making way for Kangana Ranaut — was because she was signed on to play former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in a series being directed by The Lunchbox-fame Ritesh Batra. She didn’t want to play two towering politicians consecutively. However, the series hasn’t materialized in the past seven years. “Unfortunately, it hasn’t happened yet. I was very sure I wanted to do it as a series because there’s so much material that you can’t encapsulate her life. My personal opinion is if it’s a film, it’d be just a chapter of her life, not her life,” says Vidya, praying to the divine timing yet again. “I still have my fingers crossed. I believe in divine timing. So, who knows, I may still get to play Indira Gandhi,” she adds.
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