How Taapsee Pannu is becoming more bankable as an actor with each film

Four and a quarter films shot. Two sports learnt. One award won and one viral video (“Biggini Shoot”) shared on Instagram. Also, three vacations abroad, including one in Bollywood’s favourite destination, the Maldives. Taapsee Pannu’s calendar has been full since May 2020, when the nationwide lockdown was lifted, until March this year. No actor has been busier during the pandemic. But Pannu hadn’t intended any of this. She alternated between two dramas, Rashmi Rocket and Looop Lapeta—both of which required training in running—and then immediately shot for Anurag Kashyap’s Dobaaraa. “I couldn’t delay the films any further,” she says. “I wanted to complete my 2020 commitments before something worse happened, which it did [the second wave].” The 16-hour workdays for four months, preparing for one film and shooting for another, took its toll on the actress who felt “spent physically and emotionally” even as she felt proud of doing so many “female-driven films”.

The first of the four films released this week—her first OTT release in Netflix’s Haseen Dillruba, a relationship drama about a fractured marriage. It is Pannu as the unconventional bride, Rani, who dictates the narrative with her impulsive ways. The film marks her second collaboration with writer-friend Kanika Dhillon, who also wrote Manmarziyaan. Both films see Pannu’s characters being brutally honest with their partners. “I did not try to put logic to what she [Rani] is doing and see if it is right or wrong,” says Pannu. “If I did that, I would screw it up.”

With Haseen Dillruba, her first release since Anubhav Sinha’s acclaimed drama Thappad (February 2020), Pannu continues her streak of playing complex leading ladies defined by their independence. Her upcoming roster showcases the faith that writers and directors have in her acting skills. Pannu, though, will only be content after she has earned the same trust from producers too. “I have been vocal that I want to be a star who can also act,” she says. “I want my producers to feel that I’m a bankable actor. It is a work in progress, but I am getting there. I appreciate that they are slowly stretching the extent of money they can invest in my films, knowing that there is a certain amount that’s guaranteed.” Her next project, the Viacom 18-produced Shabaash Mithu, a biopic on cricketer Mithali Raj, exemplifies that. Pannu will resume shooting for it, and then move to Woh Ladki Hai Kahan?, a Siddharth Roy Kapur-produced film, also featuring Pratik Gandhi (of Scam 1992 fame).

Taapsee Pannu (left) with co-star Vikrant Massey in Haseen Dillruba

Pannu joins a growing group of actors who have accepted OTT as a viable alternative when theatres are not an option. “It is way too long to stay away, a lot for a person who has been working practically every day,” says Pannu, hinting that a few more films of hers may go the OTT route. “You can’t be stubborn in such times. I want people to see my films. I cannot let the films go stale.”

With a long list of titular, writer-backed parts to her name, there are producers who now feel that she is no longer second fiddle material, like she was in films like Judwaa 2. “I did that because I wanted to prove that I can pull off being a commercial heroine,” she says. With less than a decade in Hindi cinema, shouldering films such as Naam Shabana, Game Over and Saand Ki Aankh, Pannu is aware that she now has an “image”. And she isn’t complaining. “It is one where my audience believes that if I am in a film, there will be something substantial in the story,” she adds. “I don’t do the conventional offbeat cinema. I do films I want to see as [part of the] audience. I have chosen the middle path where I try to marry the world of commercial and offbeat.”

As she embarks on that path, she also intermittently shows that she is a socio-politically engaged artist through her social media. Early this year, the actress also came under the scanner of income tax officials. Pannu was shooting Dobaaraa in Pune when the IT department conducted a raid on her properties. She denied the allegations and gave a tongue-in-cheek response to the saga, tweeting, “Not so sasti anymore”, referring to a jibe made by Rangoli Chandel that Pannu was a cheap alternative to her sister, Kangana Ranaut. For Pannu’s fans and supporters, the raids were payback for her opposition to the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) and solidarity with farmers. “When you know you haven’t done anything wrong, you need to stand your ground,” says Pannu. “I can’t change the person I am, it’s too late for that. You can’t instil fear in me like this”—a line befitting the many powerful heroines Pannu has played on screen.

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