She became Gangubai very soon – Sanjay Leela Bhansali praises Alia Bhatt

Any Sanjay Leela Bhansali movie is worth watching simply for the grandeur with which everything is portrayed. SLB’s next film, Gangubai Kathiawadi is all set to hit theatres on 25th February this year and stars actor Alia Bhatt in the titular role. The movie also features some phenomenal actors like Vijay Raaz and Ajay Devgn. Now, in an interview with Variety, the ace filmmaker has praised Alia Bhatt for taking up the role of Gangubai.

“The women who are weak, who are lost in this big bad world–this is a woman who’s fought for them. It’s about empowering all these women and saying whatever you are, accept what you are. And I like that thought a lot where she says: ‘If you’re a teacher or you’re a professor or you’re a doctor or engineer, then I’m a prostitute. And accept me the way I am, accept my profession, because this profession is not going anywhere. We are the fringe of society but we want to be accepted in society, because society will not be able to function without prostitution, it will always be there’. That belief in herself and that fight for dignity is what fascinated me,” Sanjay Leela Bhansali told the leading foreign publication.

Bhansali also praised Bhatt for taking up the role of a madam who runs a brothel. “She comes from a very high society, urban, upper-class lifestyle that she lives in — for her to go to this world, to the other side of it completely, we started working on her voice level to bring the note down, because she speaks slightly on a higher note, and the power in the eyes to find the attitude in speaking and talking. And I realised that she has so much in her that she picked up everything so fast. And very soon she became that woman, she became Gangubai very soon,” he said.