People tried to mould Vidya Balan into becoming a certain kind of heroine

Bollywood actor Vidya Balan has always been vocal about the stereotypes in the film industry and how she dealt with them. The actor recently opened up about the time she was told that the audience needed to see the girl in her after she played a married woman in her debut movie.

In an interaction with a famed journalist for a popular entertainment portal, Vidya spoke about how people tried to mould her into becoming a certain kind of heroine.

“I think there was a lot of pressure to be a certain kind of heroine, which I am not. I am still discovering who I am, but I did not fit into the mould. People were constantly trying to put me in a box and put a label on it,” said the actor.

Talking about her debut film, ‘Parineeta’, Vidya said, “Someone told me, ‘Oh, what a great break in ‘Parineeta’, but you came in as a woman, now people need to see you as a girl’. I was a woman. I was 26 then.”

Vidya Balan, who also highlighted the changing times in the industry, said, “There is a bigger chance that the male-led films will work compared to the women-led films because that is still a big phenomenon. Maybe because we don’t want to take a chance, but it is frustrating because more than ever, it has been proven that it does not matter who the hero is as people are only coming in for content and entertainment.”

On the work front, Vidya was last seen in ‘Jalsa’ which also stars Manav Kaul, Shaifali Shah and others.