Vidya Balan refused to step into Hema Malini’s shoes in the remake of the 1982 blockbuster Satte Pe Satta. She will definitely not be the one to yet again reform the seven untamed brothers living on a ranch.

“Vidya didn’t want to do this film simply because she feels that Satte Pe Satta should not be tampered with. That film is too iconic to be copied or revised,” explains a source about the actress’s reason for turning down Sanjay Dutt’s offer.

While Dutt will essay the role that Amitabh Bachchan played in the original film, he is having difficulty casting the female lead. Balan has point-blank refused to take on this challenging project, which will be directed by Soham Shah.

When the filmmakers spoke to Vidya’s manager, she did not make them wait too long for a reply. We last heard that Aishwarya Rai Bachchan might do the film. Let’s wait and watch.

Both, Balan and Bachchan, remained unavailable for comment.

If one would have really enjoyed the classic Amitabh Bachchan-Hema Malini starrer ‘Satte Pe Satta’, then they would be equally anticipating for its remake.

The news of Satte Pe Satta’ remake has been going around for sometime. While the new version will be directed by Soham Shah, the role of Big B will be played by Sanjay Dutt. Of late the grapevines are focused on the female leads. It’s heard that charming Vidya Balan is being considered for Hema Malini’s role. On the other hand, hot Bengali babe Bipasha Basu will be roped to play Ranjitha’s character, where she played a wheel-chair bound girl.

Wait, there’s more to this…! Names like Celina Jaitley, Minissha Lamba, Sonal Chauhan, Anjana Sukhani, Rimi Sen and Neha Sharma are being thrown in for the other female leads in the film. Similarly, Arshad Warsi will again be a partner to his Munnabhai co-star Sanjay in the remake.

Besides on the male team Fardeen Khan, Shreyas Talpade, and Zayed Khan are said to be thought about. Some sources said that Siddhant, Shakti Kapoor’s son, will debut in this movie and he will do the same character which his dad played in the original….

The film is expected to start its shooting from mid-April in Panchgani.

Hmmmm, this new cast gives us a mixed feeling… What about you?

Vidya Balan looks all set to unite with her Munnabhai co-star Sanjay Dutt for a new bag of gags. This time, she will be reprising Hema Malini’s role in the 1982 comedy, Satte Pe Satta.

The film, directed by Soham Shah, will see Dutt essay Amitabh Bachchan’s role in the original.

“It’s true. Vidya has been approached to play the role essayed by Hema Malini in Satte Pe Satta.

“Shah wanted an actress who could look mature and sexy, traditional and modern at the same time,” says a trade analyst.

Reportedly, Vidya loved the script and is keen to work out the dates for the film in her packed diary.

Shah, who made his Bollywood debut as a director in the Karan Johar-produced film Kaal in 2005, is now busy giving finishing touches to his script, said a source.

“The casting of the other characters will be announced in due time,” added the source.

The 1982 original, directed by Raj N. Sippy, was a Bollywood remake of the 1954 Hollywood musical, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers.

While Vidya’s role in the new film will be along the lines of Hema Malini’s character of a no-nonsense bhabhi, director Shah plans to give her character a quirky update to match the tastes of Gen-Now.

It will also be in keeping with Vidya’s image as an actress who has been successfully playing very different characters, including a hip mom in Paa and the sultry village woman in Ishqiya.

“The heroine also had to be a girl who could match up to a senior actor like Sanjay Dutt,” said the source.

In fact, Dutt was reportedly keen that Shah cast Vidya as the heroine in the film. The original film saw Hema Malini’s character, Indu, fall in love and marry Amitabh Bachchan’s character, Ravi.

Much of the comedy in Satte Pe Satta arose from Indu’s attempts to get along with Ravi’s six brothers, who have grown up without any parental supervision.

Of late, Vidya has had a great run at the box-office. Also, after picking up almost all the popular Best Actress awards for her role in Paa last year, she seems to have become the darling of the awards circuit. She is on a winning spree for her role in Ishqiya as well.

Vidya’s upcoming kitty of films is quite an interesting mix. She plays a vengeful action heroine in Sujoy Ghosh’s Kahaani, said to be a remake of Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill.

Milan Luthria’s Dirty Picture is a biopic that casts Vidya as the troubled Tamil siren, Silk Smitha.

Vidya has already created a buzz with reports saying she has put on weight to match Silk Smitha’s “thunder thighs” look that ruled in the eighties.

Her special dance number in Santosh Sivan’s upcoming Urumi has also kept her in the news, even as she continues to receive rave reviews for her role of Sabrina Lall in her latest release, No One Killed Jessica.

“It’s been a while since Vidya has done a solid comic role. She would love to play the central female character in the Satte Pe Satta remake. Of course, she has to okay the script first,” says the source.

Two back-to-back critical and commercial successes and Vidya Balan is literally spoilt with all the appreciation coming her way. While some have marvelled at her effortless reinvention, others have insisted that she has carved a space for herself after busting the myth of power and beauty being strange bed-fellows in recent Hindi cinema. Vidya is slowly inching towards a zone that was earlier reserved for an actor like Rekha!

Ask Vidya about the changing image of Indian heroines and the actress says, “There was a time when Hindi films had heroines like Madhubala, Nargis, Hema Malini, Jaya Bachchan and Rekha, who epitomised beauty and strength. Our cinema then had men and women. In the mid ’80s, youth became the selling point even as we began to ape the American culture mindlessly. So, it was all about cinema of boys and girls. And even if boys graduated into men, girls remained static. The mindless obsession with youth made us lose sight of heroines abroad, who were more than mere glam dolls.”

But today, filmmakers claim that Vidya’s choice of breaking away from the usual, has given wings to their imagination. So, is Vidya trying to be the Rekha of new-age Indian cinema? “I am not trying to ape Rekha,” she says at the mention of how, at a recent award ceremony, she had dressed up like the diva. “Each one of us is unique. I admire Rekha a lot. She epitomises the quintessential Indian woman who is vulnerable, desirable, strong, sensuous and so much more. Beyond the obvious South Indian connection of the kanjeevaram and open hair, to be likened to someone like her, who epitomises the quintessential Indian woman, is humbling.”

And has Vidya found someone special? “I’m single and happy, but ready to be in a relationship. I’m a self-assured person and I’d want someone who is that way. Irrespective of which profession he comes from, I want him to respect others. That’ll happen if he respects himself,” she adds. And what about her personal take on multiple partners considering that her character in Ishqiya romanced two men? “Men are great at compartmentalising relationships. A woman can simultaneously have feelings for two men, but she can’t be sexually intimate with both. Polygamy exists, but I don’t think polyandry does.”

Meanwhile, offers to explore different mature shades of relationships have come her way. “Filmmaker Sujoy Ghosh had offered me a Bengali film, Premer Golpo that would have both Hindi and Bengali film actors. But I don’t know what’s happening to it. I’m keen on doing another classic with Dada (Pradeep Sarkar).” And, of course, there’s Rituparno Ghosh on the list too.

Meanwhile, she is headed to Delhi today to shoot for Rajkumar Gupta’s film. Though tight-lipped about the film, Vidya is all praise for co-star Rani Mukerji. “She is a fabulous actor and one of my favourites among my immediate seniors. This film is based on an incident that we are all aware of. But, we are not filming it like a docu-feature.”

She is the thinking man’s dream. Whether she plays the unwed mother, or locks lips with her co-star, or suggestively sucks a thumb, her dignity remains intact. And then a pretty face and a voluptuous figure do not hurt. Vidya Balan is on a roll.

With two back to back hits — Paa and Ishqiya — a lot of compliments are coming her way from the fraternity as well as the audience. “It feels good as I can sense a certain vindication in my father’s eyes. When I was being written about in not so polite terms, there were times when I lost heart and he would tell me ‘things will change’. ‘No one can take your performance away from you and no one can give you a performance. So if that is yours, just hold on to it and that will take you places’. These words of my family gave me strength when I was a little shaky,” says Vidya.

Learning from her past mistakes, Vidya has most certainly decided to stay away from candy floss cinema. Hailed as the next big thing when she made her debut in Pradeep Sarkar’s Parineeta followed by the cult Munnabhai MBBS, suddenly she was courting controversies for her career decisions and unflattering wardrobe. “Most definitely, I tried to be like other girls. There was a certain complacency setting in. My biggest dream of being in the movies had been achieved. Suddenly, I started getting influenced by even stray people who were telling me, ‘Oh, you are getting so boring now. C’mon, glam it up’. I was probably feeling apologetic about doing a Parineeta… and I am extremely ashamed of saying that. I had begun to sway and was suddenly looking at roles very superficially in terms of being western or Indian, which I had not done even for my first film. People could sense that I was losing my identity. But these experiences brought clarity. I have come out of it,” explains Vidya, who has now redefined ‘sexy’.

“Sexy is an attitude and it comes from self-assurance. Today, I have actually gone back to wearing my sari and people are now calling me sexy and raunchy. That gives me a high,” she smiles. “Once, Balki (director of Paa) told me, ‘It takes actors ages to find their niche. Look at you, you have it and you are just about to give it up. Thank God, you held it back in time’. I was fighting that for some reason,” adds Vidya. “The kiss in Ishqiya was so passionate, though I was covered from top to toe. Tomorrow, if I have to play a prostitute and wear skimpy clothes, I will do it,” she adds.

‘I want to retain my curves’

So recently, when she went for a fitness training programme to shed those extra kilos, she decided to get rid of the excess, not the essentials. “I told my trainer to retain the curves. We are blessed with beautiful bodies, why fight that, it makes us look so sensuous,” she says. On clear terms, Vidya states that she will never compromise on the role front, it’s “only substantial roles for me. I am extremely particular not to do films for the wrong reasons.” A thriller based on the Jessica Lall killing (where she shares screen space with Rani Mukerji), and a comic caper currently excites her. “I could do a mad comedy as long as my role is substantial. But don’t make it floozy. A lot of women’s roles in Hindi cinema are very apologetic, but I am glad to be representing the changing face of Indian women since I have always portrayed strong female characters,” asserts Vidya, who doesn’t want to draw any comparisons with the current crop of heroines. “I am being me, I don’t know better, I don’t know worse,” she merely says.

No wonder, the actor is deeply influenced by the likes of Waheeda Rehman, Hema Malini, Rekha, Sridevi and Madhuri Dixit. Incidentally, the star of the millennium, Amitabh Bachchan has compared Vidya to Waheeda. A lot of people, she says, also liken her to Meena Kumari, Madhubala, “and post-Ishqiya it is Smita Patil.” “Like these actresses, I would like to lead life on my own terms and be remembered forever. But I am not so sure how many from today’s brigade will be remembered for so long,” she can’t resist adding.

‘I’m in a space of my own’

But the numbers game in Bollywood is inevitable. With constant comparisons between a Kareena and Katrina, Priyanka and a Deepika and with their names taken in the same breath, does Vidya miss out being in the Aleague? “I definitely don’t have a grouse. With no measure of immodesty, I would like to say that I am in a space of my own. I gave one hit after the other, which continues. I got critical acclaim as well as commercial success. By that measure, I qualify to be number one,” she states.
And with this, we leave the sensitive and subtle performer to bask in her glory. She is back in form. “Earlier, with Parineeta and Munnabhai, stardom hit me literally. I had no time to sit, soak it in and think. Today, I am much calmer about the success coming my way. But that childlike excitement is very much there,” she chirps.

Close to a decade and a half after his last directorial effort HU TU TU (Tabu, Nana Patekar, Suneil Shetty), there are talks that acclaimed film maker Gulzar would be returning to wielding the megaphone once again for a film with Vidya Balan being the central protagonist. With decades of experience behind him and some author backed characters that he has lent to veteran actors like Hema Malini, Jaya Bhaduri and Rekha in the past, Gulzar has seemingly set his eyes on Vidya Balan who is pretty much in the same league as far as an actor with a substance is concerned.

Vidya is (obviously) guarded in her tone though while commenting, “At the moment I would only commit to doing the Jessica Lal film. Inshallah, I do hope though that Gulzar saab makes the film with me sooner than later. That will be THE moment for me in 2010 after a beautiful 2009. Beyond that I don’t wish to comment any further on the film.”