Tabu Makes BIG Statement, ‘Not Open’ To Playing 30-Year-Olds: 'Have To Embrace My Age' | Exclusive

Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha marks old friends Tabu and Ajay Devgn’s tenth onscreen collaboration. Their first film together, Vijaypath, was released three decades ago. Ahead of the release of their upcoming love story, Tabu sits down with News18 Showsha for an exclusive conversation and instantly cracks up saying, “Will you ask me about my friendship with Ajay? Because if I speak about it one more time, he’ll break my friendship with me!”

Earlier, she had dubbed Ajay as a ‘bully’ stating how he would beat up boys who would come to speak to her. Quiz her if she would label him as one even now and she says, “He’s a silent bully. People will never come to know that has any such plan up his sleeves. He has a very quiet and sweet way of ragging people. He’s quite mischievous.”

At the trailer launch of Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha, she had revealed that Ajay often engages in gossip, a blame he diligently passed on to her. So, does she have a treasure trove of gossip about everyone in Bollywood? “No, that’s wrong. He’s just ‘badnamofying’ me. He said this because I told everyone that he always asks me for gossip. This is his way of covering up facts. I don’t have information about anyone in the film industry. I don’t have enough information about myself even!” she laughs.

The film sees them as star-crossed lovers who reunite after 22 years and has Shantanu Maheshwari and Saiee M Manjrekar playing their younger versions. When Tabu came to know of it, she heaved a sigh of relief. “My first question to Neeraj (Pandey; director) was, what about the younger part? When he told me that there’s a different set of actors to do that, I was like, fine. Sometimes, de-aging actors can look gimmicky especially if the audience knows how old they are,” she explains.

The 52-year-old further continues, “They’ve seen how we look at present. But all of it depends on the kind of film and the context. Some films can carry off older actors playing younger roles well because it isn’t jarring for the audience. But we didn’t require that in Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha and it worked better that way.”

According to Tabu, age-appropriate casting was the norm back in the day and it’s only recently that older actors have begun to play young characters onscreen. “Yeh sab cheezein pehle bhi toh hota tha jab de-aging ka concept nahi tha. We saw different actors playing younger selves of the protagonists. Once they grew up, they became Dharmendra or Dilip Kumar. I think that with this film, we’re continuing that tradition,” she states.

The Crew and Khufiya actor is also quick to add that unlike her male contemporaries, she wouldn’t want to essay a young woman onscreen anymore. But do offers to play such roles still come her way? “I would refuse those parts. I don’t think that I’ll be open to playing a 30-year-old anymore. I’ve no option but to embrace my age,” she states candidly.