Vidya Balan says her biggest flops all had male leads: ‘Ones that weren’t female-centric films performed the worst’

Actor Vidya Balan has spoken about the initial days of her career when she wondered if she should reconsider her decisions. In a new interview, Vidya also shared that among the seven films that she was part of, the two movies that ‘worked the least, were the ones with male heroes’. Following this, Vidya felt that ‘there’s no math to this’ and ‘it’s about a good film’. (Also Read | Vidya Balan says it’s ‘unfortunate’ Mission Mangal is seen as an ‘Akshay Kumar film’)

Vidya made her Bollywood debut with Parineeta (2005) followed by Lage Raho Munna Bhai and Guru (2006), Heyy Babyy and Bhool Bhulaiyaa (2007), Kismat Konnection (2008), and Paa (2009). She also featured in Ishqiya and No One Killed Jessica (2010), The Dirty Picture (2011), Kahaani (2012), Kahaani 2 (2016), Begum Jaan and Tumhari Sulu (2017), Mission Mangal (2019), Shakuntala Devi (2020), Sherni (2021) among many others. Vidya received a National Film Award for her performance in The Dirty Picture. She was also awarded the Padma Shri.

Speaking with India Today, Vidya said, “Initially, I was made to feel like I was making unconventional choices. In every promotional interview, I get asked, ‘Oh, you’re doing another unconventional film?’ Now, I think there are too many unconventional roles that it’s become conventional. But I think, at some stage, I wondered if I needed to reconsider. I had a spate of successes followed by a spate of films that didn’t do well. While I don’t really pay attention to what people have to say, but I was wondering if I needed to reconsider my decisions.”

She also added, “I wondered if I had to look at a different kind of film. Maybe I wasn’t seeing success because I wasn’t doing the ‘so-called’ conventional films. But amongst all the films that I did, and the ones that didn’t work, the ones that weren’t female-centric films performed the worst. I had a spate of seven duds. It breaks my heart to call them flops, but I had seven films that didn’t work. So, amongst those, the two films that worked the least were the ones with male heroes. So, I told myself there’s no, there’s no math to this. It’s about a good film. In my head, I made that note, decided that I should just be authentic and continue to make these choices.”

Vidya was last seen with Shefali Shah in the film Jalsa, which was backed by T-Series and Abundantia Entertainment. Directed by Suresh Triveni, the film premiered on Prime Video. She will soon be seen in Neeyat and an untitled movie directed by Shirsha Guha Thakurta.