Mumbai: Actor Vidya Balan recently revealed that when she signed Milan Luthria’s The Dirty Picture, people thought that she was 'mad' and told her she could not be 'doing things like these' as she had a girl-next-door image.
In an interview with a leading portal, the actor said, "The moment I met Milan, he inspired faith in me. So I knew that he has a certain aesthetic sense, I knew it won’t be cheap. Also, Ekta (Kapoor, producer) was involved and she is a woman. I knew her, I started my career with her. So I was safe on those accounts. But there were people who told me that ‘Are you mad? You are a girl next door and you can’t be doing things like these."
However, her parents asked her to follow her intuition.
"I remember speaking to my parents at that time and I asked them 'Should I do it?' My parents, they are obviously not from this industry, so they kept saying ‘No, do what feels right’. I asked myself ‘what feels right’ and the answer was loud and clear: 'Do the film'. So I went ahead and did it," she said.
Vidya also spoke on her reaction when she saw the costumes that she had to wear for the film.
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The Kahaani actor said, "You know, as a child, my mom had made me wear shorts and everyone teased me because I was really fat. After that, I had never worn shorts in my life. And during the first costume trials, Niharika Singh gave me a pair of hot shorts/hot pants and I came out in that and I actually felt fully okay."
During the dance rehearsals, the choreographer kept asking Vidya to 'thrust' more, Vidya said. "So I think slowly I was letting go of my inhibitions and maybe that’s why when I wore the shorts and walked out I was fine. Because there was no expectation of being perfect. I was not expected to have the perfect body in the shorts. Because Silk was big," she said.
The Dirty Picture, which came out in 2011, also starred Emraan Hashmi, Tusshar Kapoor and Naseeruddin Shah. Vidya won a National Award for Best Actress for her performance and the film was a huge box office success.
