‘Bhumi Pednekar is an intelligent actor’: Taapsee Pannu

Taapsee Pannu and Bhumi Pednekar will be seen as India’s oldest sharp shooters in the upcoming movie Saand Ki Aankh, which is based on the lives of Chandro Tomar and Prakashi Tomar. The two actresses are teaming up for the first time on screen. And Taapsee is all praises for her co-star. 

“A lot of actors are good, and there are some who are intelligent, Bhumi is an intelligent actor. She preps for the part and actually does her homework. She has a notebook in which she writes her notes for various scenes. I, on the other hand, am spontaneous. When I used to see her prep, I would feel like such a useless actor. Plus, she knows how to use her surroundings, and the props around. Not many actors do it, but Bhumi is intelligent and does that,” says Taapsee appreciatively.

Besides spending a few weeks learning to shoot, the Game Over actress had the challenge of looking like a 60-year-old. “Three hours would be spent on the face everyday (to transform) and another hour in removing the make-up. And, before we started filming, we had worked on the body language, dialect, etc,” she says. However, to get the posture and walk of an old woman right, the 31-year-old observed the ladies in the village they were shooting. “My mother is 60, but her walk is neither weird nor does she limp. But women in the village do things differently than those in the city. Their chores are different, so I had to observe the way they stand, and the manner in which they walk based on the work they do,” reveals the Mulk star.

Besides that, the svelte beauty interacted with the two women on a daily basis. “We were shooting right next to their house in the village. Now, they are pretty old, the elder one is 88 and the younger one is 84. They don’t understand what this film is going to do, but they are happy that people are celebrating their achievement. 

Taapsee says, “Chandro and Prakashi Tomar are glad to see so many people around, feasting and treating them with good food. They haven’t wrapped their head around what will happen.” 

On a lighter note, the actress reveals that considering that the two women have many children in real life, in the movie, too, she had to be pregnant several times!  “I was roaming  around pregnant on the sets multiple times, especially because the transition from young to old is shown in the first 10 minutes. Since they are so many, I don’t even remember their (kids) names, though I met them and was shooting in the village for 50 days,” she grins.  

Ever since the actress did Naam Shabana, she has been sought-after for strong woman-oriented roles not only in Bollywood, but also in the South. Recently, her Telugu-Tamil bilingual, Game Over was dubbed in Hindi and released at the same time. “I will always do one South film every year. The good thing is that the makers are flexible with the dates. Initially, they used to come with a film starring a big star two months prior to the shoot and tell me ‘Hero ki date yeh hai, now you give us your time; but I block my dates six months in advance for Hindi films. However, since I am the protagonist in most of my South movies now, they adjust on the basis of my availability,” she informs proudly.

Ask her, which industry she is getting more substantial roles in, and she confesses it’s in Hindi. “The kind of  scripts that come to me from both the industries are at par with each other, but the number of films I get are more in Hindi,” signs off the actress, who will start shooting for Anubhav Sinha’s Thappad, next.