Taapsee Pannu: ‘Anurag Kashyap says I’ve to work with Rohit Shetty if I want to become a star’

Taapsee Pannu has a career spanning more than a decade, featured in films across four languages, headlined a National Award winning movie and delivered hits. All of this is still not enough to achieve stardom, if you ask her. So, how does Taapsee Pannu become a star?  Collaborate with Bollywood’s biggest commercial director Rohit Shetty, according to her close friend and filmmaker Anurag Kashyap.
Taapsee, who has led acclaimed films like Pink, Mulk, Badla and Thappad, tells that she has had a discussion about wanting to be a star with Anurag, with whom she has collaborated for the second time with Dobaaraa after the 2018 romantic drama Manmarziyaan.
“I have told him that I want to be a star, and he has also scolded me. When Anurag and I fought after Dobaaraa’s edit, he said, ‘Why do you work with me? If you want to be a star, go and work with Rohit Shetty!’ But not everyone has the same formula. I want to take a different route to stardom. If Rohit Shetty does not give me a chance, what do I do?” she quips.

Taapsee is quite serious when she talks about wanting to be in the envious, almost mythical space of stardom. For one, it at least guarantees actors that their films would reach a wider audience, something which did not happen with her last release, Shabaash Mithu.
Directed Srijit Mukherji, the biopic of former Indian skipper Mithali Raj saw Taapsee in the lead role. Shabaash Mithu, which was the actor’s first theatrical release post pandemic, opened to mixed reviews and ultimately tanked at the box office.
“As an actor, there is only so much that I can do. I am an actor who wants to become a star. I did whatever I could in my capacity, to do my job. But I am not the director, not the producer of the film. It is eventually team work. Something definitely went wrong somewhere for it to not have worked. I am not a star yet because otherwise I would have attracted footfalls, regardless of how the film was,” Taapsee adds.

The actor began her film journey in 2010, when she landed on the sets of filmmaker Vetrimaran’s Dhanush starrer Aadukalam straight after her final year in college. She didn’t dream of becoming an actor, so, naturally, she didn’t have a bucket l of directors she wanted to work with.
While the early phase of her career had Taapsee feature in Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam films, in another industry, Anurag Kashyap was cementing his position as one of India’s brightest filmmakers, with films like Dev D, Gulaal and the Gangs of Wasseypur series. But their worlds never collided.

“I was definitely not into Anurag’s films. I can’t watch that kind of dark… The only films I saw in theatres were DevD and Gangs of Wasseypur before I entered the Hindi film industry.  The kind of films he used to make did not excite me to go and watch them.
“Because ‘Itna dil pe patthar rakh ke… pata nahi what all will be shown on screen, what kind of language would be used’. I didn’t want to go and watch it! I found Wasseypur funny, which is why I liked it. Unlike all his gory stuff,” she adds.
Produced Ekta Kapoor, Dobaara is the official remake of the 2018 Spanish film Mirage. The film will release theatrically on August 19.