Kareena considers Heroine as one of her best performances: Madhur Bhandarkar

National award-winning film director and producer Madhur Bhandarkar is known in the Hindi film fraternity as a director who often taps into the harsh life realities of life and turns them into a cinematic viewing experience with his touch of fiction and imagination. After the mega blockbuster film Fashion that starred Priyanka Chopra in the lead, Madhur set out to make Heroine. When the making of the film was announced back in the day, it created a huge storm of anticipation. While initially, Aishwarya Rai was cast for the film, later on, Madhur made the film with Kareena Kapoor.
While Madhur and Kareena both had high expectations from the film, Heroine didn’t do well at the box office. The film received polarising reviews, but Kareena Kapoor’s performance was highly appreciated. In an exclusive conversation with India Today, Madhur shared his two cents on how the movie fraternity looks at his films. Madhur said, “To be very honest, I have been appreciated by my audiences for the real and hard-hitting films I make. Not just that, even the people from the movie business have put me on a pedestal and appreciated my work. Now, whether it was for Traffic Signal, Corporate, Fashion or even Heroine — one has always looked at my style of filmmaking as unique and groundbreaking. I have worked with the best of best actors and all my female characters are often depicted in a strong way. When I cast Bipasha Basu in Corporate and put her in a pant suit throughout the film, people told me that nobody would want to see a sex symbol de-glamourised and different from what she’s been doing. But, we all know that by far, Corporate is one of the best films of Bipasha’s career.”
Speaking of Heroine and Kareena Kapoor, Madhur said, “We do make films on politicians and other biopics on different people, so then, when I make films on different subjects, I don’t see a reason why I shouldn’t be appreciated or supported for the subjects I want to talk about on celluloid. I still remember, when I was making Heroine with Kareena, a lot of people were very upset with me. Upon seeing the film, they felt that I had exposed a lot things that goes on in the life of an actress. I had drawn a lot of parallels and similarities from the lives of real-life actresses and depicted that in the film, but I faced a lot of slack for it. What I fail to understand is that the same people who appreciated a Traffic Signal or a Corporate had an issue with Heroine. Quite frankly, I cannot do injustice to my audiences. Having said that, till today, Kareena believes and says that Heroine has been one of her best performances as an actor.”
“In fact, recently, when Kareena completed 25 years in the industry, one of the films that were shown to her fans was also Heroine. I’m very proud of my baby and even today when I have to make these films, I make it with the same zeal and the same people I have worked with. When this movie was made, today’s generation was possibly 7-8 years old, but all thanks to OTT, they have seen the film now and absolutely loved it,” the director added.
Madhur also shared that he is in talks to re-release the film, stating, “In fact, I’m speaking to PVR to even re-release some of my films, including Heroine. Kareena is very proud of this film. Everywhere she goes, she praises the film. Even today, whenever we meet or talk, Kareena always calls it one of her favourite films. She portrayed the character of Mahi brilliantly and she’s indeed one of my favourites too. She’s a phenomenal actress and I’m very happy that even today, when I meet people who have watched the film, they always say that Kareena in the last 25 minutes totally nailed the film with her aura and her performance.”