Madhuri Dixit will soon be seen in the role of superstar Anamika Anand in The Fame Game. This Karan Johar backed series showcases a Bollywood icon whose seemingly perfect life comes under scanner after she disappears. Filmmaker Sri Rao is its showrunner and writer. It is jointly directed by Bijoy Nambiar and Karishma Kohli. It will start streaming from March 25 on Netflix. In a media interaction, Madhuri answered a volley of questions. Excerpts:
Anamika Anand is a star in the show while you are a megastar in real life...
Anamika Anand is a big star, and she is very famous. She has a perfect life and a perfect family. So I think in that sense she is a star. I’m a star in real life. Her relationship with her family is very different, and mine is very different in real life. Her relationship with her husband or her dynamics with her children is different. She is like a tigress to her children. She loves them a lot whenever they are subjected to any problems because of her fame. This series has a second side of fame depicted which can be dangerous. So where and when she has disappeared is a big question mark. Nobody knows what has happened to her. It is at this point a question about her identity arises... who is she? Mother, daughter or wife? A mystery shrouds around her.
Will you run away if you get a chance like her?
I will never like to run away. I’m very happy with my life. But if I wish to go out, I love beaches. Any place which is surrounded with lovely beaches, where I can go along with my children, I would love it as I can relax over there to the fullest.
What are the drawbacks of being famous?
If you try to hold onto stardom, then there are drawbacks like Anamika’s which will be seen in this show. I feel fame treats you the way you treat it. Fame ke sath gehra rishta hota hai aur yadi aap uss mein doob jao toh kuch na kuch hota hai. For me, it’s just a by-product.
Perfect leading ladies at times play flawed characters. How do you feel the audience will react to Anamika?
Nobody is perfect; everyone has flaws. Anamika is different. She didn’t want to be but was forced into this profession, but she is here now. She always feels she has done a lot for everyone. Nobody is perfect; perfection is an allusion. In real life, I make mistakes. I may look bad sometimes, but not everybody will understand. I look perfect like I’m looking today, but this won’t be the case on a daily basis. My hair is not good at times. Maybe at times, I’m not feeling good. I enjoy playing these characters. There are so many layers. These are the little things I liked.
Does being a superstar ever affect you?
I look at it as a profession. When I’m facing the camera, I’m an actor. I know what I’m doing. I become that character for the camera. I have been brought up like a normal person. I have been taught by my mom; she would ask me to clean my own messed up room even though we had house help. So having lived a very normal life, I have never lost myself really.
Actors get away playing young characters as lead while actresses have to struggle to get age-appropriate roles for actresses. What’s your take on it?
Things are slowly changing. It can’t happen overnight, but we as audiences have matured a lot. They are exposed to Spanish and Korean films. They see how the role of a woman is changing. It’s changing. Earlier, women-oriented characters were victims, or they were seen in revenge taking roles. But today, we see them in characters like mathematicians, sportswomen or women who contributed to the Mangalyaan mission. Now onwards is a good time for women to be working as it’s real, not extreme.
Have you ever faced any hassles while taking your kids outside the house? Were they open to the world of glitz and glamour?
I have not gone through anything that happened out of this world. A minor irritation is like paparazzi photographing my kids. It’s like not every kid likes to be photographed. This I see as a bit of an issue. But I always l gave them the freedom to choose to be photographed or not. It’s up to them to sit in the car. They are old enough now and have learned to deal with it.
As shown in the show, are bonds in this industry fickle in nature?
You can’t generalise anything. Sometimes, yes, there exists a fickle relationship in real life, but you can’t categorise that film people are like this and normal people are not. We have normal relationships. Anamika is a fictitious character you hear in so many stories. The writer has taken everything that makes the character intriguing. Especially when she disappears, secrets start coming out. It’s dramatically exaggerated.
