New talent on the block

Vidya Balan says the feeling of having acted in a beautiful film like Parineeta is yet to sink in.

Vidya Balan must really regret opting for Sociology and not English literature for her Masters degree. Because the actor, who made her debut in Parineeta, is falling short of words to describe her “first film experience”.

At the party to celebrate the success of the film, Balan, dressed in a heavily embellished, shocking pink sari, says: “I’m still in character. I’m speechless.”
Back from the recently concluded IIFA Awards in Amsterdam, where the film was premiered, Balan says the feeling of having acted in this “beautiful film” is yet to sink in. “So much is happening around me that I haven’t had the time to take in all the compliments. My friends and relatives fill me in on what critics have had to say about me,” she says with a smile.

Balan has done a fair bit of modelling and has worked with the film’s director Pradeep Sarkar (this is his first feature film too) in his ad films and music videos. “It was Dada (Sarkar) who was convinced I could play Lolita,” she says. “What you finally saw on screen is the end-result of many people who worked to make me Lolita. I have been involved with the film right from its pre-production days. I’ve read the novel and I literally breathed Lolita.”

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Vidya Balan says the feeling of having acted in a "beautiful film" like Parineeta is yet to sink in

Critics have described her as one with ‘speaking eyes’ but she isn’t letting the compliment blind her. She comes across as a level-headed girl with loads of talent — one who has what it takes to be a good actor. “I have always been this laidback person who lived in the moment.”

Coming up next for this student of St Xavier’s College, Mumbai, are two more films with Vidhu Vinod Chopra. “I am doing the sequel of

Munnabhai

and

Yagna

with Amitabh Bachchan, Saif Ali Khan and Jackie Shroff,” she says.

“As an actor you shouldn’t do anything half-heartedly — it shows on screen.” With the praise that Balan has garnered for the film, we are sure she played Lolita wholeheartedly.