Taapsee Pannu avoids predictable roles to surprise audiences

Taapsee Pannu has opened up about her approach to choosing films and why she has deliberately avoided being confined to a particular image throughout her career.

As she prepares for the release of her upcoming film Gandhari, the actress reflected on how the film industry often relies on familiar casting choices and how she has tried to challenge that pattern.

Taapsee said that filmmakers frequently turn to a fixed group of actors depending on the type of project they are making. According to her, certain actresses are repeatedly considered for glamorous roles, while another group is often approached for socially relevant or hard-hitting stories.

She explained that she has sometimes rejected projects when she felt her casting would make the story too predictable for viewers. Taapsee said she has even discouraged filmmakers from choosing her for certain roles because audiences might immediately anticipate how the story would unfold.

The actress believes that being repeatedly associated with one particular type of character can eventually work against both an actor and a film.

For her, maintaining unpredictability has become an important part of her career choices. Rather than accepting projects simply because they fit an image that has already worked for her, she prefers roles that allow her to explore different shades as a performer.

Reflecting on how she developed this approach, Taapsee said it was partly shaped by the circumstances at the beginning of her career. She pointed out that she did not initially receive many conventional mainstream roles that were considered reliable money-makers for actresses.

Instead, she found herself being offered characters in films that were considered different from the usual commercial formula. While those projects may not have seemed like obvious mainstream choices at the time, several of the roles and films she selected eventually gained wider recognition and helped bring such subjects into the mainstream.

Taapsee described this development as a gradual process that continued to influence the kind of work she chooses today. Her filmography has included a mix of commercial entertainers, thrillers, dramas and issue-based stories, allowing her to avoid being identified exclusively with one genre or character type.

Her next project, Gandhari, takes her into another challenging role. Directed by Devashish Makhija and written by Kanika Dhillon, the film features Taapsee as a blind mother who sets out to find her missing daughter.

Speaking about the character, Taapsee said the story focuses on the extreme lengths a mother can go to when her child is taken away from her. Rather than being presented simply as another story about a crime against women, the film explores a mother’s emotional and instinctive response to the disappearance of her child.

She described the character’s journey as one in which a mother is pushed beyond her normal limits. In her view, taking away someone’s child can unleash an extraordinary strength that is difficult to control.

The actress suggested that the film explores the idea of motherhood as a powerful force, particularly when a parent is confronted with the loss of a child. Her character’s determination to bring her daughter back forms the emotional core of the story.

Gandhari also features Ishwak Singh, Jatin Sarna, Swastika Mukherjee, Mita Vashisht and Chhaya Kadam in important roles. The film is directed by Makhija and written by Dhillon, with Taapsee leading the story in a role that once again moves away from the conventional image associated with mainstream female characters.

The film is scheduled to premiere on Netflix on September 3, giving audiences an opportunity to see Taapsee in another intense and unconventional performance.