Movies

Warrior princess diaries – Tamannaah Bhatia

During the special 8th anniversary cover shoot, we catch up with Tamannaah on movies, life and more.

Bollywood Dreams
In spite of being from Mumbai, Bollywood hasn’t favored Tamannaah and her foothold has been ever so strong only in the South film industry. There is a huge notion in Mumbai that she is from the south. Her debut movie sunk without a trace and the supposedly amazing remake of the old classic Himmatwala with Ajay Devgn also crashed and burned. “People in Mumbai ask me if I am a South Indian! I think it is fine because this industry gave me my career and so much love and recognition that I am humbled. When I started doing Hindi films, it was a try and I did not have any kind of expectations and that did not go down well with me. Nobody wants to make a bad film and it so happened that my choices at that time were bad.”

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Baahubali – The Magnum Opus
Baahubali clicked with the world audience for all the right reasons and smashed expectations overnight. For a movie that had its cast and crew fixed a year ago, it came quite as a surprise to Tamannaah when she was roped in too. “I got a call from Rajamouli sir for Baahubali. I had no idea of why he was calling because the cast for Baahubali had been pre-fixed and they had all finished shooting their portions, so naturally I thought that this was for a special appearance. I went to his office and he was kind enough to tell me the whole story and also about my role as a warrior princess. I was thrilled and surprised that they had not shot that part. I said yes immediately because it is a dream for any actor to work with Rajamouli sir and now after this movie, the whole world has accepted that.”

Life after Baahubali
Baahubali created record in every field of cinema within days of its release. All the actors and crew basked in its glory and Tamannaah was no alien to bouquets herself. Though overall, the film got an exceptional response, it was not far from receiving brickbats for one particular scene with Prabhas and Tamannaah . The scene features an aggressive display of ‘love’ against a gorgeous landscape with gentle music playing in the background. People criticized the scene for being disrespectful towards women and still conveying the message of rape by beautifying it.

A lot of the negative comments were directed towards Tamannaah and her decision to go ahead with the scene in spite of it sending out a wrong message. “I did receive comments on my social networking page against the scene but I think that goes for every actor and every role in every film. There is always something negative in a film that does not go down well with a certain sect of the audience. People who asked me about the scene were also interested in knowing the whereabouts of the waterfall and I had to assure them that it was computer graphics. That is the beauty of this film in the sense that it has transcended languages. For me, that scene was about the warrior princess fighting herself against falling in love. That is the quest. The disrobing is a symbolic expression of her changing her ideals and trying to fall in love. Anyone watching a movie will have his/her opinion on it and not everyone perceives it in the same way. For starters, I do not care about negative comments that come my way. If at all, the negative comments have just given the movie more publicity. People who did not watch the movie went and saw it for that one scene! You cannot derive logic out of everything and the film did what it was supposed to and that’s that.”

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Tamannaah Unplugged

Foodie? Yes. Big one. I live to eat. My favorite is Biryani

Cooking: Not much of a cook but if I am hungry, I cook to keep me from starving

Fav co-stars: Karthi (because I am working with him for the third time), Arya and among girls, I get along really well with Ileana and Shruti Hassan

Love: Clichéd but I really don’t have time for it now

Marriage: Not anytime soon but definitely on the cards. I believe in the institution of marriage and kids

Favorite holiday destination: Paris

Food or shopping? Give me both at the same time and I am a happy girl

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