From Pink, Badla and Thappad, to Manmarziyaan, Haseen Dillruba and now Rashmi Rocket, Taapsee Pannu has charted her own path in Bollywood, with fiery and fierce protagonists, and glass-ceiling-breaking films. During a recent discussion with CBFC member Vani Tripathi Tikoo at the FICCI Young Leaders Global Summit, the actress spoke about her unconventional cinematic choices, why she likes to be a ‘relatable’ star, and why no A-list actors want to work with her anymore. Excerpts:

“The last decade or so of Indian cinema has been path breaking — in terms of creating roles where women are not hourglass figures, babes-in-the-woods or arm candies. Women are real and they are not all that perfect,” said Vani, adding, however, that A-list actors are still hesitant about starring in women-led projects. Taapsee agreed, saying, “Take the statistics — if you see any A-lister female who is headlining a project as a protagonist, the guy opposite her is someone who is still climbing up the ladder. But the reverse is not true.”

Taapsee said, “If you see the A-list male actors’ films, even for the five-six scenes opposite them, all the best female stars are cast. It speaks clearly about the sense of security and confidence of female actors versus male actors. We (female actors) know that if you’ll give us five-six scenes, they’re enough to make our presence felt. A Mission Mangal will have five female actors together in a film, who have — in their individual capacity — headlined films. It just talks about the sense of security women have.”

She added, “Every time I sit down with my producers over a list of the top five actors shortlisted for my films, those top five actors are the ones who have done just one or two films. And even they don’t want the role, because the system around them trains them to not do a film in which their role is just 10%.”

Citing the various excuses actors have given to not work in a film with her, Taapsee said, “One actor refused to do a film (in which she had a double role), saying, ‘Ek Taapsee ko sambhalna mushkil hota hai, yahan toh do hain’. There was another co-actor who was offered a film with me, and we had worked together before. He just said, ‘I don’t want to do this film because, actually, the sympathy goes more to the girl in the end.’ It was a love story! I told him I expected a little more confidence and sense of security in an actor like him. He has done way more films, and is a bigger star. But that’s the sad truth we are dealing with everyday.”

Despite embracing strong female protagonists on screen, Taapsee remains as relatable as ever — and that’s intentionally so, she says. “Very early in my career, I realised that the trajectory of being an aspirational heroine or someone who is a diva and larger-than-life... that kind of a heroine is not going to work for me. There are many other actresses who are in that queue. It’s just not gonna make sense for me. A lot of people come to me and say, ‘Oh, you are like one of us’, and I’m like, ‘Exactly, that is the idea!’. I wanted all of you to take me back to discuss in your living room, and not just forget me when you leave the theatre. I started picking up stories that would make anyone watching the film feel, ‘this could be my story’. That relatability quotient helped me become a household name and become a very organic part of their lives,” says Taapsee.

Taapsee says that Pink’s success shaped her career, and made it the “the way it is (today)... just breaking one glass ceiling after another, because it is helping my career.”

The actress adds that she was pleasantly surprised when she first found out that Amitabh Bachchan would be part of the film because she never thought that a big star would agree to the part. “We were going to have a superstar like him as the lawyer, and he was going to have lines like — ‘Are you a virgin?’. Shockingly enough, that was the opening line of the trailer as well, which instantly hooked everyone.”

“While promoting Mulk, Anubhav Sinha and I were just discussing how we don’t really speak about some very basic issues of our society which we come across on a daily basis, and how we don’t make stories around them. At that time, the discussion was about whether we should base the character out of a ‘not-so-well-off household’ or a small city. I told them that was too convenient — to go, ‘Oh! hamare yahan nahin hota hai yeh. It happens to people who are not that well off’. Let’s just target the elephant in the room! This happens at every level. So that’s when Sir (Anubhav Sinha) came up with this beautiful idea of placing her in a situation where you feel like, ‘Yahan toh ho hi nahi sakta!’ The guy is so good, the family is so loving towards the girl, and even the girl is a housewife by choice,” said Taapsee.

“Even after the film released, many women thought, ‘Ek thappad hi toh tha’. I almost lost my temper at one of the screenings, when a woman said that. I said, ‘The problem with all of us is when we tell the other woman, ‘this is enough for you’ and ‘this should not be enough for you’. It destroys the whole meaning of feminism where you are telling the other woman that ‘ek tha, toh theek tha, dus hote toh theek nahi hota’,” she said.