Taapsee Pannu is in a “happy, comfortable space”, having finally debuted as a producer with her latest OTT release Blurr. However, the actor admits it wasn’t easy balancing the “dual task” of playing the lead part and being the producer. In a candid chat, Pannu opens up about plans to not do thrillers for sometime now, the typecasting culture in Bollywood and why she wants to return to the big screen soon. Excerpts:

I felt that this is a controlled film, in terms of locations and number of people, so it’ll be nice to step into and test my skills as a producer. Also, I wanted to be responsible and instrumental in taking decisions in terms of who should be in the film in the capacity of cast and crew, and how the film should look.

My personal ego is way insignificant in front of a good script. I can’t keep satisfying my ego of being called the ‘best’ actor, the ‘highest-paid’ actor or the ‘most versatile’ actor in the industry. All this is too secondary. If I get a good script, I want to do it irrespective of the genre, or worrying about what slot it puts me into. I feel if you have a strong recall value of me as an actor for doing certain kinds of roles, I still look at it in a positive light.

I don’t have any tricks as an actor to portray these roles than to actually believe that this is happening to me. So, it takes a mental toll and burns me out. After Blurr, I decided to just go light on my filmography and not delve into darker zones, because I really need to recover mentally.

Before the day started rolling and after pack-up, I was fully in the producer zone, but even while acting, I was subconsciously bothered. And that dual role of being a producer kept haunting me a bit. After the film got over, I told myself that I need to choose either for a particular project and not be an actor on board, unless absolutely necessary.

I didn’t have an option with those projects coming on OTT because that was the best possible medium to at least present my work to audiences, when theatres were shut. I’d still want to go back to being on the big screen because that’s what I’m an audience to. However, after Haseen Dillruba, I saw the plus side of OTT — which is accessibility and its insane reach.

No. Just because one kind of a genre, a whodunit thriller worked, doesn’t mean people stopped making them. Be it films or docudramas about these psycho killers, they’re a rage right now on OTT. So, you won’t stop making a film on them just because so many such series already exist.

After Blurr, I immediately jumped into Woh Ladki Hai Kahaan, an out-and-out comedy. The director told me, ‘You’ve gone through a lot in the last couple of years with the kind of films and roles you’ve done. For this, I just want you to be yourself and have fun’. This was literally the only brief I got for my character. In fact, all my successive films that I’ve done or signed up, including Dunki, are all relatively light and more fun. So, that helps me detox.