Making Bollywood as her home and pretty much in the thick of affairs, Tamannaah Bhatia has entered the Hindi film zone with Himmatwala. A top heroine down South and having re-entered the Bollywood arena, Tamannaah is already making her presence count with another film already signed with Akshay Kumar.
You have been around for so long and now you have two Hindi films in the pipeline. Still, what made you take so long to step into a Hindi film when in South you were anyways so popular?
To be honest, I kept getting Hindi films but then I waited for a movie that I wanted to watch as an audience. What happens is that as an actor, you may be biased towards your product and believe that it is the best. When you work in a film, you tend to lose objectivity. I didn’t want to fall into that trap and had to take a decision early on at the script stage itself. I am a movie buff first.
While that must have been true, I am sure that with a setup comprising of Ajay Devgn as the lead, it must have been all the more easy decision to make.
I have always believed that films are made with teamwork. Ajay has been amazingly consistent with his performances while Sajid has scored a hat trick. The fact that they are successful and also that they are really good with the work that they do further convinced me to come on board.
All eyes were on how you would be able to do justice to a setup like Himmatwala which was based in the early 80s. After all, you were not even born in that era.
I have grown up watching 80s cinema. In a way, somewhere down the line my homework was already done. Beyond that I did whatever I have understood of the film as a whole. The entire learning process was a very gradual that I followed. The idea was to keep the essence alive, not ape anyone.
It would be expected though that now you are in the inner circle of Bollywood, you would be expanding your wings further. In that context, has Himmatwala turned out to be a calculated move?
Hardly (smiles)! Do you know that even when I had started working down South, I didn’t have a portfolio? Every film of mine got me work for my next. Same holds true for the Hindi films too. Even now when I was working on Himmatwala, I was not thinking of future. However the promos of the film got me my next film with Akshay, where Sajid-Farhad would be making the debut as the director duo. Meanwhile there are also a couple of films down South as well. I am happy with my kitty and not thinking about future. I am enjoying my time.
