Taapsee Pannu on bouquets, brickbats and making the most of an unplanned break
Ankita Chaurasia (MUMBAI MIRROR; April 8, 2020)

Taapsee Pannu was gearing up for a jam-packed 2020, before the Coronavirus pandemic came along. The actress had only 10 days of work left on Vinil Matthew’s romantic-thriller, Haseen Dillruba, and the Tamil spy-thriller, Jana Gana Mana and was to kick-start four films — Rashmi Rocket, Looop Lapeta, Anurag Kashyap’s supernatural thriller and the Mithali Raj biopic, Shabaash Mithu. When the shutdown was announced, she burst into laughter instead of suffering a nervous breakdown. “I was getting stressed about juggling dates. Now, everything will have to be readjusted, and for no fault of mine,” she chuckles.

Describing the resulting chaos as “karma that has come back to bite the human race” and “nature putting their foot down”, Taapsee points out that she will have lots of stories to narrate to the next generation. As far as work goes, she’s not fretting as not just the film frat, every job and person has been hit by the outbreak. “When normal life resumes, we will all be starting from the same place, no one will have a headstart,” she philosophizes.

The actress has been undergoing rigorous training since January to play an athlete in two back-to-back sports dramas, Shabaash Mithu and Rashmi Rocket, and has to maintain the fitness level. “It will be impossible to sustain the training over a long time. Also, my diet has to be in sync, which is nearly impossible right now. So, I’m on a plateau, looking at maintaining form and shape so that when I get back to work, it doesn’t feel like I’m starting anew,” informs Taapsee, who flew down to Mumbai from Haridwar to isolate herself from her 59-year-old mother and 65-year-old father, who are in Delhi with her sister.

Away from family, she’s been trying to hone her skills in the kitchen, even though she doesn’t enjoy cooking, because it keeps her occupied. “I’m worried I may soon run out of things to clean. I have OCD. Even during a hectic schedule, I water the plants every day. Now, with the gardener away, I need to keep them alive. Cleaning the house is therapeutic, I’d recommend it to everyone,” she laughs.

When she’s done with the chores, Taapsee unwinds with a film that she couldn’t catch in the theatres or clocks in some hours of reading. “I wasn’t able to read any scripts because I was caught up with the shoots and promotions. Now, I am reading one every day, making feedback notes and sharing my inputs. I’ve even liked some of them,” she says.

Isn’t she keen to pursue long-cherished hobbies during the downtime? “I’m a trained classical dancer. A couple of years ago, I was determined to give dance more time. Unfortunately, the teacher can’t come to train me now. That apart, I was never into arts, crafts or cooking,” she says dismissively.

Dancing, gardening, cleaning and a lack of culinary skills…Taapsee’s timetable reads like a character sketch of Amrita, her housewife from Thappad. Has the character stayed with her, you wonder, and the actress admits that filmmaker Anubhav Sinha, who knows her well, wrote the character keeping her in mind. “Amrita was real and hence resonated with so many on a personal level,” she avers, pointing out that the film could have enjoyed more weeks in the theatres if not for the unseen virus. “Deepika (Padukone) and Kangana (Ranaut)—whose women-centric films, Chhapaak and Panga, released this year—are big names. We never thought that Thappad would match or surpass their collections, more so since films on acid attack survivors and a mother reviving her career don’t divide the audience. It is a huge validation for everyone involved.”

The actress, who was already in Haridwar by the time the reviews started coming in, says she’s happy she didn’t have the time to revel in the compliments. “It’s scary when critics declare you are in top form after every film. Where do you go from there? The graph should always keep climbing because once you reach the top, you have nowhere to go except down. Praise can go to your head, though mine is firmly placed on my shoulders,” she chortles, admitting that the best compliment came from her father, who couldn’t find a single flaw in the film.

But what about the brickbats, in particular those coming from detractors who wanted her film banned? “Twitter is a war-zone, when you try answering the trolls, they manipulate your words and give everything a political turn, making things controversial. Then, they will ask for your film to be banned. When it works despite them, they are enraged,” smirks Taapsee.

She recently stood up for Neha Dhupia after she was trolled for her comment on a reality show. Insisting that she would have dealt with the situation differently, the actress reasons, “Neha feels that cheating is a moral choice but violence is not acceptable. I feel both are morally wrong. One can’t be the answer for the other as two wrongs don’t make a right. Ditto for trolls, who questioned her morality and targeted her husband and one-year-old daughter. I was speaking up against that.”