EXCLUSIVE: Vidya Balan on being called ‘jinxed, ugly’: I didn’t look at the mirror for 6 months

Vidya Balan has had a rollercoaster sort of journey in showbiz. Having been born to relatively progressive parents, the industry was an eye-opener to the young actor, who made her debut with TV several years ago. Since then, Vidya Balan has had to face a lot of rejections, labels, body image issues to become ‘THE VIDYA BALAN’ today. There is no doubt that the actress today embodies perfection and advocates for being themselves. However, her road to self-acceptance hasn’t been easy.

In an exclusive chat, she opens up on the time when she cried to herself after a producer called her ‘ugly’ and how she overcame that phase. Setting a precedent for young girls, she said that the journey isn’t easy but once you understand that everyone is beautiful, it becomes easier to love yourself.

Recalling how a producer once passed a nasty comment on her looks and her struggle with body image issues, Vidya shared, “Unfortunately it doesn’t matter what you have achieved, I think women still get defined a lot by the way they look. Or get judged a lot for the way they look. Our self-esteem depends on the way we look. Our self concept is determined by the way we look or the way we think we should look. Or the way we think the world looks at us. So its very unfortunate but this is the reality and how did I overcome that period? Yes, I didn’t look at myself in the mirror for six months.”

“But when I started feeling better about myself, it also had to do with getting work. One I started working I felt better about myself and then I thought that I looked better. I think I have cried a lot, I didn’t look at myself in the mirror but over time I just realized that there will be days when you don’t feel great and you feel like you don’t feel great but actually nothing’s changed its about how you feel about yourself. So I now only focus on how I am feeling about myself. When I focus on that I focus on feeling better. I instinctly look better to myself. Actually nothing changes, you look the same. You look good everyday. Its just that your perception changes,” she added further.

You can watch the entire conversation below:

In the beginning of her career, down south several projects of Vidya either got shelved or she got replaced. Following that the actress was labelled as ‘jinxed’. “We have been labelled over time. Iska charitra theek nahi hai(Her character is not good). Yeh apshagun hai(she is unlucky). I think because we have always depended on others to tell us who we are. We derived our identity from others especially the men in our lives. And by men I just don’t mean your father, your brother, your husband and your son. I am saying the men generally. Because what they thought of us determined our value as we didn’t had the identity of our own outside our relationships with men in our lives. I thinks its really pretty unfortunate when people are superstitious and when they want to blame something going wrong on an individual, they label them as jinxed. I think its just a reflection of how they feel about themselves. I don’t think anyone is a bad luck. So people judging others are very unkind to themselves. Because only when they are unkind to themselves, they are unkind to others,” reasoned the National award winning actress. 

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Also Read: EXCLUSIVE: Vidya Balan on facing rejections: I would cry myself to sleep but I am hopelessly optimistic

Bhavna Agarwal

Assistant Editor at Bollywood Bubble. An ambivert who is currently high on K-dramas and K-Pop. A forever Bollywood fan, who continues to gush over solid stories and characters. Hit me up for a fine conversation over chai.

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