Taapsee Pannu is one of the rare female stars in Bollywood to have led films that are in the 100 crore club. The list of female-led Indian films to cross ₹100 crore globally is short, and the stars who have led them are even fewer. That makes Tapsee an actor of a rare breed. However, the actor admits that the landscape of theatrical releases has changed since the pandemic. Ahead of the release of her next film, Assi, Taapsee chats with Hindustan for a rare conversation on films, the business, the craft, and more.
Taapsee on independent films
Assi is the story of a rape survivor (played by Kani Kusruti) and her lawyer (Tapsee). The film aims to fight the notion that small films that deal with issues are not meant for the theatres. Taapsee argues, “Yes, things have changed since the pandemic. Let’s face the reality. But change is the only constant. It is a situation where this kind of cinema is finding it tough right now. We really are hanging on a hope.”
The actor says that today, the audience lets go of many films in theatre as they feel they’d rather catch it at home when it releases on OTT. However, she says that if this continues, many such films may not even make it to streaming. “It’s not just about whether we should watch it in theatre or not, but also about OTT’s mandates being where you don’t want to pick up a film that doesn’t do well in theatres. The audience doesn’t know this reality because they think, ‘We’ll watch it!’ But you won’t get it on OTT also very soon. So, I hope they get to know this, and they still value this kind of cinema. I hope they change things again, since they have done so before. They can do it again,” she says.
‘Now audience is quoting box office figures’
In the last decade, the conversations around films and how they are perceived have changed. “Now the audience is quoting box office figures,” laughs Taapsee. But the actor says the trend of using box office collections as a metric of a film’s quality is a flawed one as not many people outside the business understand box office returns. “People don’t know the basic concept of ROI of a film, return on investment. The ROI for this film (Assi), if it does well, is huge, in comparison to other films that you call big films. And also, they don’t understand the math of screens and shows. They assume that if his/her previous film opened to ₹15 crore, this one should do the same. That’s not how it works. Every film has a certain screen count, which depends on the genre rather than the actor. So if your previous film released in 2000 screens and this one on 500, the collections will be lower,” explains Taapsee.
About Assi
Assi, Taapsee’s next, is directed by Anubhav Sinha and written by Gaurav Solanki. Apart from Taapsee and Kani, the film boasts a strong ensemble cast, including Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, Kumud Mishra, Supriya Pathak, and Manoj Pahwa, along with cameos by Naseeruddin Shah and Divya Dutta. Produced by T-Series, the film releases in theatres on 20 February.