Vidya Balan to play Meena Kumari in her biopic?

A few months ago, Vidya Balan in an interview to this paper said that she wanted to play Meena Kumari on screen. The thought she put out in the universe, seems to be turning into reality now.

Says a source, “Vidya has been offered the biopic now. The makers feel she can perfectly portray the actress on screen and hence approached her for the biopic.” While Vidya is keen to do the film, she has not given a nod yet. “The actress has just wrapped Tumhari Sulu and she’s been receiving a lot of great scripts. This is one of them. The makers will now give her a proper narration and then, she will decide whether she will do it or not.”

But then, the film hit a road block as Meena Kumari’s step-son was against the idea of casting Kangana as his Chotti Ammi. He said that Kangana was ‘too modern’ to play the yesteryear actress and added that it required someone who was ‘traditional and a very strong personality.’ Guess, he can tick off both those boxes with Vidya!

PC missed the chance

In 2005, Priyanka Chopra was offered the chance to play Meena Kumari in a biopic by Pritish Nandy Communications. The film was to be a new adaptation of Bimal Mitra’s Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam. PC even did a photoshoot for the film, but it never got made. Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam then passed into the hands of Rituparno Ghosh, who directed a television series of the same, with Raveena Tandon playing chhoti bahu.