Although
actress
Vidya
Balan
feels
she
has
had
to
give
a
restrained
performance
in
her
latest
release
Sherni
because
of
her
character
of
a
tough
forest
officer
fighting
the
system,
we
feel
she
has
shown
glimpses
of
that
in
all
her
performances
on
screen
-
restraint
whereever
required
even
in
roles
that
had
to
be
a
little
loud,
cheerful
or
more
'popular'.
Or
maybe
that's
how
women
inherently
are.
In
an
exclusive
roundtable
with
Vidya
Balan,
Filmibeat
asks
the
powerhouse
performer
about
how
she
prepared
for
her
role
of
Vidya
Vincent
in
Sherni.
Excerpts
from
the
conversation.
We
start
with
congratulating
Vidya
Balan
on
her
act
in
Sherni.
Looking
calm
and
happy,
and
dressed
in
an
elegant
saree,
as
she
often
is,
Vidya
thanks
us.
We
feel
it's
good
to
see
stories
like
Sherni
being
made
these
days
-
straight
from
nature
-
when
one
is
actually
reading
about
such
incidents
of
tigresses
being
killed
in
the
jungles
of
Central
India
(recent
one
being
in
April
2021).
We
ask:
How
is
your
performance
or
preparation
for
the
role
different
from
the
other
characters
you
have
played?
Sherni
is
not
a
mainstream
performance....
For
instance,
Tumhari
Sulu
or
anything
else
you've
played
is
still
a
lady
or
a
girl
that
you've
seen
in
and
around
you,
maybe.
But
in
Sherni,
it's
a
forest
officer
(not
even
a
cop
in
the
city),
someone
you've
not
even
seen.
So,
how
did
you
internalise
it
and
prepare
for
it?
"I
met
with
a
few
female
forest
officers
and
they
helped
me
understand
the
nature
and
the
scope
of
their
job,
the
challenges
they
faced...," says
Vidya.
"Their
personal
life
is
often
fragmented
therefore
because,
they
are
living
far
away
from
their
entire
families
and
it's
tough,
and
the
sexism
they
face.
But
that's
a
reality
that
not
just
people
in
this
department
but
I
think
people
the
world
over
and
in
every
profession,
experience.
But
the
officers
also
helped
me
with
some
reading
materials
and
some
links
to
documentaries,
and
I
did
some
forest
trails
with
them.
So,
that
helped
me
understand
the
job
of
a
forest
officer."
How
did
you
build
on
the
personality
of
the
character?
"As
far
as
the
personality
of
forest
officer
Vidya
Vincent
was
concerned,
one,
it
was
in
the
writing
(of
the
movie),
and
second,
it
was
the
writer
Aastha
Tiku
and
writer-director
Amit
Masurkar
who
helped
me
understand
Vidya's
motivations,
her
reactions
or
the
lack
of
it,
and
all
of
that.
So,
the
personality
was
really
Amit
and
Aastha's
imagination
of
who
Vidya
Vincent
would
be,"
says
Vidya.
Vidya
goes
on
to
elaborate
on
how
Sherni
the
film
is
a
metaphor
-
not
just
about
the
tigress
T12
in
the
jungle,
but
the
character
of
Vidya
Vincent
herself,
who
is
fighting
sexism,
misogyny,
patriarchy,
and
the
system
in
the
human
jungle.
We
congratulate
Vidya
Balan
on
yet
again
proving
what
she
had
said
in
one
of
her
earlier
interviews
-
that
she
is
a
"tigress
on
the
prowl"
as
far
as
acting
is
concerned.
She
has
time
and
again
shown
her
class
act
on
screen,
and
history
repeats
itself
in
Sherni
-
with
the
pun
in
place.
Kudos
to
Vidya
Balan!
We
cannot
wait
to
see
what
the
actress
is
doing
next!