Filmmaker’s friend slams Vidya Balan for leaving Kamala Das biopic

Vidya Balan was said to be very much preparing to play rebel Kamala Das in a biopic but she apparently walked out of the Malayali filmmaker Kamaluddin Mohammed film when he was attacked for being “anti-national”. A friend of Mohammed’s has spoken out miffed at Balan for leaving the project.

Talking to Bollywood Hungama, the friend said, “The story of Kamala Das is much larger than any of us individuals who were the core team of the project. The film will be made without Ms. Balan. We’ll announce a new lead in a few weeks. At the risk of sounding proud dare we suggest that it is her loss entirely? We don’t know why Vidya chickened out at the last minute. We don’t think it was right-wing pressure. We think Kamala Das finally proved too controversial for Vidya to play. We’ve no problem with her opting out. But why did she wait till we were ready to shoot? Why didn’t she inform us of her decision before? She did not even communicate her decision directly to the director. Kamal was in the dark about her decision to quit until he got a cursory call from one of Ms Balan’s team members. Until then she simply cancelled two schedules without indicating her unwillingness to do the film. Is this the way to announce your exit from a film for which you were preparing eagerly for the last one year?”

The friend further adds that Mohammed had organised a coach for Balan to ensure her Malayali was upto scratch, “She was very keen on playing Kamala Das until a month ago. She was working on her Malayali accent and on personality traits of Kamala Das. Then we don’t know what happened. Perhaps after 6-7 successive failures in Hindi going into a regional film would’ve sent the wrong signal to her Bollywood producers”.

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