Vidya Balan is never afraid to display her vulnerable side – a reason why she’s a top notch actor
Anuradha Choudhary (TIMES LIFE; December 10, 2017)

From a one BHK in Chembur to a sprawling sea-facing apartment in Juhu. Does it seem surreal?
We recently sold our Chembur house and that was heartbreaking. I went there and cried. For the longest time we had kept that house. But the redevelopment seems to be taking forever. Unfortunately, the building is falling apart. I used to take a bus from Chembur to come to Prithvi theatre in Juhu for my summer workshop. I was 15 then. Looking back it seems symbolic. I’d get off at the bus stop, which is right outside my present house because the Prithvi workshops were conducted in a school in Juhu Koliwada, where Asha Parekh lives. Not once did it occur to me then that I should be living here. I was happy. I know people wish for bigger houses and better cars. I’m not one of those. Which is why until seven years ago, we lived in Chembur.

When was the first time you realised you wanted to act?
I keep saying it was Madhuri Dixit’s Ek do teen (Tezaab) but I guess it started before that. Those days, while I was still in school, they used to show regional language films on Doordarshan on Sunday afternoons. I remember watching Laxmi in a Tamil film, where she plays a lawyer. There was a huge scam in the South those days where because of the reservation policy, many Brahmins claimed to belong to the scheduled caste. Laxmi claims to belong to a scheduled caste in the film and gets caught. Then I remember seeing the Malayalam movie Elli Pattayam. The movie seemed slow with nothing happening. My sister Priya painstakingly explained to me the difference between art and commercial movies then. She also explained what acting was. How it’s about your ability to express feelings and how your eyes are the most important tools while acting. I soaked in all this at the age of 11. And then there was no looking back.

When was the first time you realized you were beautiful?
Thank you for saying that but while growing up a lot of people would tell me, ‘You’ve got such a pretty face, why don’t you lose weight? It always came with the caveat of ‘why don’t you lose weight?’ I was a plump child. During my teens I was fat. But at home there were no restrictions on food. My father only wanted us to eat well. But I guess, my mother was a bit worried. As a kid she would take me for walks. She’d trick me and take me to Chembur station for grocery shopping. She’d say we’ll take a rickshaw back home. But she’d make me walk both ways. And I’d sit on the road crying, refusing to walk.

But while acting and thank God for that, I realised that beauty is as beauty does. There I wouldn’t bother about profiles. But if I had to pose for a picture or if I had to do a photo shoot or an ad film, I’d tell them to shoot me from the left.

People do call you beautiful…
Now I believe it. There was this phase when things went wrong with Heyy Babyy and Kismat Konnection… I’ll always be grateful to all those movies because they brought that clarity. Otherwise, I’d have failed miserably. After those movies, I ended up doing Ishqiya, Paa and No One Killed Jessica. I simply responded to my instinct. The past few years have not been great professionally because my films have not worked. But I’m in a happy space. I won’t have it any other way. I feel grateful.

Go on…
I’m not saying that I didn’t go through the angst and analysis about why they didn’t work. What was I doing differently? I kept wondering about all the things that were told to me about marriage… that it hampers your professional life... I wondered, maybe, I had made a professional mistake by getting married. However, through it all, I always knew I wanted to be with this man (Siddharth Roy Kapur).

Did you share these thoughts with Siddharth?
Yeah, of course I told him. Not that marriage was a mistake but maybe it was true that married actresses don’t do well. And he’d keep telling me it’s not whether you’re married or not married; it’s about how the films turn out. I’d tell him but I’d made the right choices. Over time, I arrived at the understanding on my own that it’s not about the right choices. Sometimes you like the idea but the script doesn’t turn out as well and sometimes even a good script does not translate into a good film. So many variables go into making a film. So when it doesn’t work you can’t look just for one reason. Around that time Kareena’s (Kapoor Khan) Singham Returns released and it was a blockbuster. So I realised it was not about being married at all. Sometimes you just look for things to blame to make sense of your disappointments. But I was meant to go through this so that I don’t ever question my decision to marry or my choices again.

Historically, married actresses have always worked. There was Shobhna Samarth, Sharmila Tagore, Raakhee, Hema Malini, Kajol, Sridevi...
Yeah true. There was a time when actresses were women. So it was okay to be married. Then the heroine became a girl. When I joined I was already a woman. People kept telling me ‘your shelf life will be short; you have to do girly roles’. Which is why I attempted a movie like Kismat Konnection. But it flopped for me. Because I was never a girl. I was born a woman. But all that is behind me now. I’m just happy being an actor.

So are you a better wife or actress?
(Laughs) Better actress.

Would you recommend marriage to everyone?
No. It’s all about the person actually. You must find a person with whom you want to spend the rest of your life. It’s a big decision. If you find the person, great. But if you don’t, it’s not the end of the world. I’m not the kind who will say you must try marriage.

Does being financially dependent make a difference in the marriage?
It definitely does. I keep telling this to the girl who works for me that whatever you earn, you have to keep aside something for yourself. That security is something else. I tell her do things for others but even if it’s just Rs 500, save it for yourself. Money is power. It gives you the strength to take right decisions.