Shabana of Naam Shabana speaks up

Before her seemingly spectacular performance in Naam Shabana, She had indeed stunned us all with her performance in Pink. That’s right, folks! She is none other than Taapsee Pannu! Now that the release of her third film this year Naam Shabana is on the way, she is more than happy to talk about it. Taapsee revealed to a leading daily how she feels about her upcoming film, Naam Shabana, the Nepotism controversy and more.

On her butterflies-in-stomach kind of feeling ahead of Naam Shabana:

I think after the media started asking me this question that’s when I started to feel the pressure because before this I wasn’t. When you have people like Neeraj Pandey and Akshay Kumar supporting the film, I don’t think it’s even worth feeling the pressure. Yes, I play the title role but on sets, I did not feel anything different from what I felt while we shot Baby. Yes, I felt a little pressure in the beginning because we started shooting for Shabana, 2 days after Pink released so I was a little nervous. However, Neeraj (Pandey) sir was very supportive.

On her relation to Shabana as a character:

A Big fat 0, I don’t relate to it at all. It was a huge challenge, not just physically but also mentally. I can’t identify with this role. So far, whatever role I did, I had an element of me in them, but this film has zero elements of me. I love to talk a lot, this woman doesn’t, she has extremely strong stubborn focus, I am not that stubborn with goals. She doesn’t shy away from hitting people if need be, I don’t do that, I can’t even stand violence in front of my eyes for a long time. I take everything at face value, while she can read between the lines. My sixth sense doesn’t exist.

On her take on the ongoing nepotism fiasco:

Nepotism and outsiders are two sides of the same coin that is Bollywood. They both have to co-exist. Both have their share of struggles. You can’t say it is all easy for a star kid. The burden of expectation from them is so much even before they become an actor, so when they become an actor, they are always seen as so and so’s son and daughter, that’s a lot of expectations rather than me who will just go perform even if I am average or just good people will still love me because they have zero expectations out of me.

But yes, we struggle in a different way, nobody gives a phone call for us, to take her in a  role, nobody talks for us. I don’t have a godfather but I have to make filmography like that that I eventually don’t need anyone to give a phone call.

On her ongoing momentum with her films, given that She had Pink in 2016, and this year a total of four, two of which are already out, she says: 

I have nothing to complain. What I am scared of is that I hope I can maintain the momentum.