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Aditi Rao Hydari on Bibbojaan, Heeramandi and the roles she wants to play

In a 2024 interview, Aditi Rao Hydari described Bibbojaan’s gentle resolve, her practical approach to period roles and the genres she hopes to explore.
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For Aditi Rao Hydari, Bibbojaan in Heeramandi is gentle without being passive: injustice gives the character resolve and a larger purpose. In a 2024 interview with Scroll, the actor explained how she approaches period roles, why she puts directors first, and how she thinks about the image audiences bring to her work.

What draws Aditi Rao Hydari to Bibbojaan?

Heeramandi is a period drama set in Lahore during the British Raj. Rao Hydari plays Bibbojaan, a character she describes as soft-hearted and apparently gentle, but firm in her beliefs. The character is moved by injustice and by a cause larger than herself.

That tension matters to Rao Hydari’s reading of the role: kindness and femininity do not cancel agency. She says Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s women are not one-note heroines, but people with full lives, purpose and the ability to act on their convictions.

Her aim is for a performance to stay with viewers. As she put it, “I want the audience to take me home with them.”

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How does she prepare for period roles?

Rao Hydari says period projects let her enter a world that no longer exists. The filmmaker’s atmosphere and the connections between characters help make that world believable. Her interest in art, music, history and stories is also connected to the stories she heard from her mother and grandmother.

Preparation, in her account, combines concrete craft with attention to the character’s circumstances:

  • Diction: shaping how the character speaks.
  • Body language: finding how the person moves and carries herself.
  • Clothes and context: asking what the character is wearing and who she is.
  • Dialogue: practising the words until the work is familiar.

She draws a distinction between rehearsable technique and emotion: “I don’t think one can prepare for feelings.” She recalls advice from her Bharatanatyam guru, Leela Samson, to practise and know a piece thoroughly so that, in performance, it can flow. The idea is not to manufacture a feeling in advance, but to prepare well enough to remain present when it arrives.

How do her other roles illuminate her range?

The Scroll conversation places Bibbojaan alongside Rao Hydari’s earlier period characters: Sumitra Kumari in Jubilee and Anarkali in Taj: Divided by Blood. Those examples show her working in period settings, but the interview is not a complete filmography or a ranking of her performances. It also discusses her work across several Indian-language film industries and collaborations with Bhansali and Mani Ratnam.

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Rao Hydari says some viewers had typecast her through assumptions about fragility and classical beauty. She has come to accept that part of her screen image, while valuing directors who push her beyond it. She credits Mani Ratnam’s Kaatru Veliyidai with changing how others viewed her work, and describes his direction as giving her time and space to explore.

Why does she choose directors first?

Rao Hydari’s answer is direct: “I always pick the director first.” In the interview, that preference connects to the way she describes filmmaking. A director shapes the atmosphere of an unfamiliar period world and creates the conditions in which a performer can explore a character. Her comments point to collaboration—not a role’s genre or costume alone—as a central part of what makes a project appealing.

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What kinds of roles does she want to take on?

In the interview, Rao Hydari said she wanted to try stories in the vein of Knives Out or Gone Girl, as well as love stories. The range reflects an interest in moving between genres rather than being confined to period dramas or one familiar screen image.

The interview also records comments she made in April 2024 about Gandhi Talks, Lioness and a Tamil-Telugu bilingual thriller. Those were plans discussed at that time, not confirmation of their current release status. The conversation is best read as a portrait of her approach and ambitions in 2024, rather than as a current project schedule.

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