Vidya Balan believes she has a "cosmic" connection with Calcutta. Indeed, when it comes to cinema, it has to be said that Bengal has played a big role in the actor's life.
She rattles off the Bong connections one by one.
"I played a Bengali bride in a music video. My first film was Goutam Haldar's Bhalo Theko. I played a Bengali woman, Lalita, in Parineeta, a Bengali dancer Manjulika in Bhool Bhulaiyaa and Vidya Bagchi in Kahaani," she says. And now she is back in Calcutta, to shoot for Sujoy Ghosh's production TE3N, where she plays a cop.
Shooting is about to begin, and she is in her vanity van where her make-up artist is working on her face. The profile looks remarkably Bengali. Balan laughs and says that director Pradeep Sarkar - and others - often remarked that she reminded them of Satyajit Ray's muse, the actor Madhabi Mukherjee.
The make-up artist thickens her eyelashes, and we get back to TE3N, a thriller starring Amitabh Bachchan. Balan has her hopes pinned on the film, for if there's one thing that she needs now it's a box-office success. The actor has not delivered a single hit since Kahaani and her marriage in 2012. Ghanchakkar, Shaadi Ke Side Effects, Bobby Jasoos and Hamari Adhuri Kahani have all bombed. But her marriage, Balan hastens to point out, has nothing to do with the films' fate.
"You never really know what goes wrong when a film doesn't work. It's a collaborative medium; so even if I would have done it differently it wouldn't have changed the fate of the film. It's really disheartening but unless there are those highs and lows I don't think there's fun in the journey," she says.
And she would know that, for she has seen both lows and highs. An outsider in the world of Hindi cinema, she had to struggle for several years before she got a role in Pradeep Sarkar's Parineeta in 2005. Industry insiders say that producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra had Aishwarya Rai in mind for the role, but Sarkar, who had worked with Balan in videos and ad films, insisted on her.
Then came a number of commercial successes - Lage Raho Munnabhai (2006), Bhool Bhulaiyaa (2007), Heyy Babyy (2007) and Kismat Konnection (2008). But that Balan was a fine actor emerged with Paa (2009) and Ishqiya (2010). This was followed by sterling performances in No One Killed Jessica (2011) and Kahaani (2012). She also won a National Award in 2012 for The Dirty Picture.
But then what happened?
"What happens with success is that suddenly the world begins to perceive you differently and you feel infallible. I think maybe somewhere, without sounding immodest, I was bored of not being challenged," she says.
Balan adds that for a short while she was worried how her marriage with Walt Disney India managing director Siddharth Roy Kapur in 2012 would affect her career. "The more you fear, the more mistakes you make. I put unnecessary pressure on myself since I wanted everyone to take me seriously as a professional. But what happened? I didn't allow myself to ease into a change in life and lost some precious time that I could have enjoyed with Siddharth," she says.
Balan feels that in her zest to be perfect in everything she did, she put a lot of physical and mental pressure on herself after her marriage. And that led to health problems which kept her confined to her home for some time.
"That was a blessing in disguise because my husband and I got to spend a lot of time together," she smiles.
It was because of fears about her health that she opted out of good friend Sujoy Ghosh's film Durga Rani Singh. Ghosh incurred heavy losses, and the two didn't talk to each other for a year.
"At that time I just needed to take it easy so I opted out of the film. I didn't do it happily and felt guilty about it. But the film was also not being made for some other reason. There were delays in his path and every time my guilt would increase even more and that prevented me from reaching out to him," she recalls.
But finally when they bumped into each other at a coffee shop in Mumbai, Vidya broke the ice. "I said: 'Hello, Sujoy Ghosh, do you remember me? We worked together.' He said: 'Oh yeah, we worked together. Were you the pregnant woman in the film Kahaani?' And that was it," she laughs.
Now that they are back as a team, Balan wants to kick-start the new year working with Ghosh. She has read the script of Durga Rani Singh, the story of a single working mother, which Ghosh wrote with Balan in mind. "I liked it but if he comes up with a great script of Kahaani 2, I don't mind that either," she states.
Meanwhile, she has also completed her first Marathi film Ek Albela, a biopic of the comic actor Bhagwan, where she plays the ebullient Geeta Bali.
What about rumours in Calcutta that she'll play Begum Jaan in Srijit Mukherji's Hindi remake of Rajkahini?
"I can't answer that but I have watched Rajkahini and it's an extremely powerful film. Srijit and Arindam Sil interest me as directors," she adds.
Balan hasn't acted in a Bengali film since her debut, though she and director Rituparno Ghosh often talked about working together. "I get a lot of offers [from Tollywood], but for me to do a Bengali film the script has to be very interesting."
And what about the fact that despite all the accolades she has received as an actor, she is yet to work with any of the three Khans of Bollywood?
"It's their loss, isn't it," she retorts with a broad grin. "I liked Salman in Bajrangi Bhaijaan but I don't see myself in a Salman Khan film because all attention is focused on him and I am not willing to take second place. SRK is not doing any romantic films now and I have not really interacted with Aamir at all. But I am very eager to work with Ranbir Kapoor," she says cheekily.
Her current weakness, though, is Idris Elba, the British actor best known for his portrayal of a drug lord in the HBO series, The Wire.
Among the heroines in Bollywood, she has no particular favourites but praise for quite a few. She loved Kangana Ranaut as Datto in Tanu Weds Manu Returns and Kalki Koechlin in Margarita with a Straw. She also likes Deepika Padukone and Priyanka Chopra's works, she adds.
What is the real Vidya like, I ask. Not very different from the star, she replies. She explains that though she enjoys the perks of acting and revels in stardom, she knows that at the end of the day it's just another profession.
Balan oozes confidence - and asserts that her strength lies in her close-knit family: her parents, sister and brother-in-law and their children. And, of course, her husband. "When Siddharth and I are in town, we go for long drives or dine out in our favourite restaurant, The Table, in Colaba," she says (though home-cooked food and Maggi give her the most pleasure).
She likes to get up late if she can and prefers yoga to the gym. The gym may not be a bad idea, I suggest and she snaps back: "I am a full-bodied, wholesome Indian woman and I love my body and celebrate it. I feel very, very sexy."
A postgraduate in sociology from Mumbai, the actor holds issues such as women's empowerment, education of the girl child and sanitation close to her heart.
On the raging debate about intolerance, Balan calls for introspection. "We should look into ourselves and ask how tolerant we are. But we are an extremely tolerant country. Yes, there are certain cases or incidents that should not be happening, but these don't make society as a whole intolerant. Let's not magnify that into something else; let's not make that our identity. We have coexisted for centuries and will continue doing so," she says.
There is a knock on the door of the van. The director is ready for the shot. And so is she. The hair has been done, the nose touched up and the jawline enhanced with the stroke of a brush. Something about the determined jaw tells me that 2016 will be a challenging year for her. And the actor is all ready to reclaim her place in Bollywood.
Portrait by: Omkarnath