Vidya Balan, who has completed nine years in Bollywood, reveals what keeps her in love with films 
Nayandeep Rakshit (DNA; January 1, 2015)


Birthday plans?
Nothing special actually. Like every year, I will spend my birthday with my family. My husband, mom, dad, sister, brother-in-law, my nephew and niece - everyone will be there. That's how usually it always is.

Your last three films didn't fare well. Does that make you review your choices?
It was disappointing for sure. I was devastated after Ghanchakkar! I had five huge hits back-to-back which not only brought in money but critical acclaim as well. I was not used to this. But when Shaadi Ke Side Effects released and did not do as expected, I guess I dealt with it better. And with Bobby Jasoos, I dealt with it even better. I also realised that by the time Bobby Jasoos released, nothing could have been done anymore. You cannot really do anything about it. It is heartbreaking when a film does not do well, but I am okay with it now. Maybe I needed to go through these experiences too. (Smiles)

So you are more accepting of failures now?
No. That's not what I meant. But I feel it has helped me realise now that acting is not about failures or successes, hits or flops. I am doing it just for pure passion. But I am not stepping down anyway. I want all the films of mine to do stupendously well at the box office. I have been in films for nine years and experiences of all types make you realise that it is not the end of the road. I am as passionate as I was during Parineeta and will continue to be so.

You being the pioneer of women centric films, do you think other actresses too are vying for that slot now?
There is no slot that needs to be filled. I believe that I have always occupied a certain space where I was doing things all alone. I was not competing with anyone. I didn't see anyone as competition. I just did the films I wanted to do. I did not set out to create this women-centric-film trend or prove a point to anyone. I have just followed my heart and it has worked well for me. But there are pros and cons to that too - somethings work, somethings don't! But probably with time, with experiences, the failures don't shake you up that much. Even if they do, it's human enough for you to bounce back.

You are doing fewer films now. Is that a post marriage thing?
No, marriage has not brought in any changes I believe. I have always done one film a year and at the max, two films a year. So I don't think all these has anything to do with marriage. But with marriage, the changes which have come in are all internal. That much I guess everyone changes. Even when I started living with Sidharth, things changed a bit. And then you are married, so there are further changes. But that has not altered my career choices or my style of working. I am doing Humari Adhuri Kahani now and I am as involved and as neck deep into it as I always was. In terms of work, marriage has not yet changed.

You went missing for a long time.
Yes, it was probably much before Bobby Jasoos, just after Shaadi Ke Side Effects got released. I was going through some major health issues. So I was not getting out that much. I was focusing on sleeping on time, eating on time and just keeping calm and happy. The most important thing for me was to avoid any kind of stress, which is why I had to opt out of a film also.

And there were so many conjectures about your marriage and pregnancy. Comment?
I have been here for nine years and there have been lots of conjectures about me in the past too. So it does not really bother me. It upset me for a bit when they said something about Siddharth and my marriage. But it took me about a day to get over it. I was upset and stopped mulling over it after a day. This is how it has always been in the industry. But this time, I got a little protective about Siddharth because he is not an actor and his life is not open to conjectures or speculations. It's not fair on him. The fact that he laughed it off made it easier for me to deal with. Because of health reasons, when I opted out of a film, people could not believe that. People were asking me whether the issue was that grave that I needed to take a break by opting out of a film. My point is that grave or not grave is very relative. For someone else, it might be wrong but I wanted to give my health a priority - something that I have not done all these years. If someone had to explain me opting out of a film and pregnancy seemed to be easiest reason, then they could. But they eventually looked foolish.