Vidya Balan: Happy To Use Akshay Kumar's stardom To My Advantage

As Tara Shinde, one of the scientists leading the Mars mission, Vidya Balan steals the show in the recently released Mission Mangal.

- Priyanka Bhadani

She has done this before, yes. Yet, she has been missing from the screens for a while now. In an interview, she tells us what kept her away from films and more. Excerpts:

Why have we not seen you more often on screen in the recent past?

It has been two years to Tumhari Sulu, may be that is why people are asking me this. Otherwise, I try and do one film a year. All the ideas that I ended up liking after Tumhari Sulu were not ready scripts. They had to be written; they were ideas. Mission Mangal was the only script that appealed to me.

What was interesting about playing Tara Shinde?

I think it was the overall package. [Co-writer] R. Balki narrated the script to me and it is one of the rare instances in my career where I said yes immediately after the narration. I loved the way the script was written. The science was simplified, though not compromised.... I liked the way they had fictionalised the life of the scientists. And, it was such a proud moment that I thought it should be celebrated. This is the fourth film I have been offered on this subject, but this script just grabbed me. It has humour. It is entertaining. And then I had a chance to work with all these wonderful female actors, besides teaming up with Akshay Kumar again.