Vidya Balan on the thrill of reliving Manjulika and matching steps with Madhuri Dixit in ‘Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3’

When Anees Bazmee and the producers came to me with Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2, I was nervous because Bhool Bhulaiyaa has given me so much and we didn’t have franchised films yet. So, I didn’t understand how it would be to do Bhool Bhulaiyaa after all these years. But when I watched the film, I realised it’s a completely different story despite being a part of the franchise. I enjoyed the film and when they came back with the third instalment, I totally loved the script. I was looking to do something fun and entertaining, and the film was right up my street. The script of the film drew me, it was more important than anything else.

It is the same role but different. Fundamentally, Manjulika is same but there’s no connection between that story and this one, and that’s the fun of it.

This song gave me so much and it is such a special song, which is why they repeated it in part 2 and now in 3. Also, this gave me the opportunity to dance with Madhuri — she is the Dancing Queen and working with her is easy. She keeps to herself and doesn’t indulge in loose talk and yet she is very pleasant on sets. We spent time chatting, laughing about something or the other, and watching memes together. She is very warm and has grace in everything she does — the way she speaks or moves — that’s her persona and that’s who she is. When the time came to shoot the dance sequence with her, I told Anees and Bhushan (Kumar, the producer) to push the shoot because I get nervous about dancing, and this is classical dance and I have not been in touch with it. Also, I haven’t exercised all year since I was under a health corrective programme, and suddenly I have to dance. But we didn’t have the luxury of time, and at that time, I was also promoting my film Do Aur Do Pyaar. So, I tried to rehearse as much as I could with Chinni Prakash’s assistance and put in long hours whenever I got the time before promotions. But I knew one thing that when I am sharing the same frame with a dancing legend like Madhuri, I should be worthy of sharing it. So, I put in my effort and did my best and then I enjoyed myself on the set. I remember one of the assistants on the set wondering why I was so relaxed and I told him that it was a dream come true for me to get a chance to dance with Madhuri in a song of mine. That’s a big takeaway.

He is just amazing and is a king of entertainment who understands how to make a scene super entertaining and strike that balance between horror and comedy. Since he is also a writer, he thinks on his feet and is constantly trying to make a scene better. All his films are enjoyable, so, I wanted to do a film with him. He knows how to get people to work and rarely loses his temper. A lot of times, we had to wait for a while because a film of such a magnificent scale requires big sets, lighting would take time, there were lots of actors, but I never felt it. The moment I was ready I would go and sit with Anees on the set and talk to him. He’s been an assistant to Raj Kapoor and worked in every department right from sound and editing to production design and direction. He acts as well, so, I used to enjoy talking to him.

Not really, but I believe in energies. I am more scared of human beings because I think we human beings can be quite a revelation at times, and dangerous of all species because we are capable of thinking, and hence capable of achieving the impossible in both good ways and not so good ways. More than any species, humans are a bigger threat, but honestly, I’ve been very fortunate in life to have only come across good people so far.

I’m a very private person and therefore I don’t think I can say that I have made friends in the industry. I realised the nature of our job is such that it’s not possible to make too many friends because you are working intensely with a set of people and then you go on to the next project and work as intensely with the next group. So, it’s not humanly possible to keep in touch with so many people. Very few relationships develop and stay with you and filmmaker Sujoy Ghosh is one of them besides my two mentors, Goutam Halder and Pradip Sarkar, both of whom untimely passed away last year. That left a vacuum in my life. Both of them didn’t take great care of themselves and in both cases, the wives took great care of them — they lived as long as they did for their wives.

I have had a history of negligible lingering health issues, so I always focused on my health, especially for the past five-six years, once I turned 40. Currently, I feel better than I ever felt in my life. It’s not just physical health that we all need to work on, it’s also mental and emotional health. I have been working with a healer, Nidhu Kapoor, for the past 13 years and that has helped me immensely. A lot of time, we go through so much stress that it helps to talk to someone who’s not emotionally invested in you and can give you an objective point of view. We carry so much stress in our bodies that culminates into physical stress, so, mental wellness is very important.

A very good script, a good director, an interesting role, and the opportunity to entertain and have fun, because this is what I love doing. And I am blessed to be doing it for a living. Just to be able to bring alive a character and tell a story in an interesting way inspires me.

I would love to do a full-fledged comedy. If it’s a historical character, I would love to play MS Subbulakshmi, which is why I paid a tribute to her recently in a photo shoot. I would also like to play Meena Kumari, and Indira Gandhi.

I’d love to but honestly, I’m bored of the kind of roles and content people are offering me – it’s all very dark and intense and in the thriller space. I am in a happy mind space right now and there’s a need for that– there’s enough of darkness in this world.