‘I never want to go behind the camera’

She loves campaigning for causes, but National Award winning actress Vidya Balan has no intention of stepping out of the arclights to make it a full-time career because acting is what she lives for. Besides, she feels the country is currently ‘very disillusioned with politics and politicians’. 

‘I am very happy being an actor. If being a known face, a film star or celebrity can draw attention to a cause and get people interested in knowing more about it...I am happy. But acting is what I live for and I don’t see myself ever entering politics,’ Vidya said in an interview. The 35-year-old endorses the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan sanitation campaign and Nihar Naturals Shanti Amla, which started a ‘Chotte Kadam Pragati Ki Aur’ campaign in association with NGO Child Rights and You in September 2012. It aims to empower women to help children’s education in India.

As much as Vidya believes in the power of such campaigns, she is more comfortable doing these from outside the circle of politics. ‘I think that at this point, more than ever, we are all very disillusioned with politics and politicians...so that’s not a space I want to enter at all. I am more committed to what I am doing right now,’ she said. In fact, The Dirty Picture star loves her acting profession so much that she never even wants to go behind the camera or handle production work.