Now it can be told. Playing the woman possessed in Priyadarshan’s “Bhool Bhulaiya” was a harrowing experience for Vidya Balan, so much so that one day while doing the climactic dance of death, she simply collapsed.
“For a person like me who never gets outwardly angry, never raises her voice and never gets violent, getting into character as Manjulika, the wronged, abusive ghost, was something I thought I’d never carry off. Hats off to Priyadrashan for having so much faith in me,” Vidya said.
“I’m aware the role was offered to Aishwarya Rai. I was also aware that Shobhana and Jyothika rocked in the Malayalam and Tamil versions of the film. They were accomplished dancers. I had to learn Kathak from scratch, then perform a proper formal dance with a trained dancer (Vineet) and also do a demented, raging, out-of-sync dance performance as a woman possessed. On top of that the song for the dance came in just two weeks before shooting.”
In addition to the dancing, she had to enact the part of a woman who’s possessed by the ghost of a dead dancer. Almost like Linda Blair in the cult horror film “The Exorcist” in the 1970s.
Was Vidya as traumatised as Linda? “Playing such a psychologically disordered woman who’s outwardly so normal changed my perception of people who suffer mental trauma. I had isolated myself completely for three days. When I wasn’t shooting the traumatic climax I just walked around the haveli listening to the music and the sounds of silence, staying complete in character. Even my parents couldn’t reach me on the phone.”
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Vidya totally rocks in the movie. She will definitely be nominated for a FilmFare and other awards for the best actress role but i sooo hope she wins it. She’s one of the best actresses in Bollywood and only one or two other actresses only could come out with a performance like hers in Bhool Bhulaiya.