Vidya Balan: Warm, Witty, Wicked

Vidya Balan gets remarkably candid with Sandipan Dalal about the gender pay gap in Bollywood, her discomfort with auditioning for roles in Hollywood, and why she’ll never work with husband Siddharth Roy Kapur.

- Sandipan Dalal 

Vidya Balan is on week two of a ‘forced’ medical leave after being diagnosed with dengue. The actor had a whirlwind year shooting for Sujoy Ghosh’s Kahaani 2 in Kolkata until May this year, and then travelled to Punjab and Jharkhand to shoot Srijit Mukherji’s Begum Jaan in June, followed by a trip in August to Australia as brand ambassador of the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne. And now she’s in bed, recuperating and being lectured to by her parents. “My mom was telling me, ‘Is this the only way you’re going to take a break? Why don’t you learn?’ But this time, it was not my doing. Blame my producers and directors,” she laughs.

While on bed rest, balan is reading scripts, following the us presidential election campaign and itching to get back to dubbing for kahaani 2 and filming for the kamala das biopic, aami. “I’ve been sleeping a lot; I try to read but I fall asleep. No wonder I’m feeling a lot better,” says the actor, who looks fresh, her hair cascading around her face as she lounges on a comfy couch in the sea-side home she shares with husband and producer siddharth roy kapur in suburban mumbai. As we chat, balan, witty and warm as ever, gets candid about work, her marriage and baby plans.

Are you feeling better now?

I’m an intense actor and I like to take a break between films. After finishing Kahaani 2, I should have said I couldn’t start Begum Jaan immediately. But, I gave in. And it took a toll, especially because we were filming in Jharkhand in 45-46 degrees. I believe actors in Hollywood enroll for detox programmes after a film. But we don’t do any of that. We just keep jumping from one thing to the next. So, now I’m sleeping like I’ve never slept at all. I started watching Narcos finally, and I’m following the US presidential election campaign.