Vidya Balan set on playing Indira, buys rights of biopic

A couple of months ago, Vidya Balan had expressed her desire to portray the role of India’s former prime minister, Indira Gandhi, on the big screen. In fact, talks regarding such a role were initiated earlier last year, but it eventually fizzled out owing to authorisation issues. The Tumhari Sulu actress, nevertheless, seems to have her mind set on the idea, and has taken a step forward to fulfill her dream.

Vidya has acquired the movie rights to a well-known biography on the erstwhile prime minister, titled Indira: India’s Most Powerful PM, written by reputed journalist Sagarika Ghose. “I am happy to have acquired the rights to Sagarika Ghose’s Indira, because I have always wanted to play Indira Gandhi. I haven’t decided yet whether it should be a film or a web series, but that will take a while anyway,” said Vidya in a text message.

Notably, this step also opens a new chapter in the actress’ career as it indicates that Vidya might be starting her own production venture. Our text to Vidya on that, however, did not get us any more details.

In the meantime, a source shares, “She has always been very excited about prospects of playing Indira on screen. And since the biography is a rather elaborate piece of document and also well accepted, she thought acquiring the rights would be a good way to go ahead. She, however, is yet to decide how she wants this to shape up. Whether this would be a documentary, a series or a feature is yet to be worked out. For now, she is just happy to have the rights of the book.”

Book cover of Indira by Sagarika Ghosh.

Ever since she delivered an exceptional performance in The Dirty Picture, Vidya has been approached for multiple biopics. The 39-year-old was also supposed to headline the biopic on celebrated Carnatic singer M.S. Subbu-lakshmi. And by her own admission, Vidya also wants to make a biopic on the late yesteryear actress Meena Kumari. But none of the films have taken off so far.