She lights up the screen every time she is on it. Now, Madhuri Dixit-Nene is spinning her magic on OTT with her recently released web series, The Fame Game. The Aaja Nachle actor effortlessly plays Anamika Anand, a veteran Bollywood star whose life and layers unfold as the eight-episode series plays out. The Fame Game puts the spotlight on the glamour and struggles of Anamika Anand’s life, navigating through the many roles that she plays off screen.
In a conversation with News18.com, the actor explains how her life experiences in showbiz are in stark contrast to what her fictional character Anamika is up against in the series, the price of stardom and how she hasn’t allowed her success to affect her family.
The Fame Game touches on the topic of the cost of fame in the life of a superstar. What has been the biggest price you’ve paid for being famous?
By and large my life has been quite good, and never really had to pay a big price for my fame, because that’s the way I’ve treated it. For me, fame is just the by-product of what I do. Every morning I am excited that I am going to face the camera, to play a certain character and do this scene or that. That’s what excites me. Everything else that happens to me is in peripheral vision. My focus is my art, whether I am dancing, singing or acting. My focus is my family when I am at home, everything is about the kids. I need to know what they’re doing, where they are… I’ve managed to keep these two lives very separate. I don’t think fame has affected me in any negative way yet.
Did real-life situations help you in portraying your character in The Fame Game?
My character Anamika Anand is a big star and is very famous. She has a perfect life and family. When we talk about the star and her family, her family dynamics and relationships are very different from mine. With her kids, she is like a tigress, she’ll do anything for them. And if they suffer even a bit because of her fame, she feels very bad about it. In this series we have looked at the other side of fame, and we are showing how it can be dangerous.
When you get to play flawed characters, how liberating does that feel?
People make mistakes. I don’t look good every day, sometimes I may look bad or my hair is messed up, or sometimes I am not feeling very good. That’s the reality, and I enjoy portraying these characters because there are so many layers. At one point my character in the show says, ‘My life is so good, I’m feeling so good’, ‘I feel so blessed’, but does she mean all those things she’s saying? Not only Anamika Anand, but all the characters in the series have a lot of layers, and every character has an arc of their own, and when that arc is complete, all the characters connect and it is just beautiful. Also, perfection is an illusion. Nobody is perfect, everybody has some flaw. Anamika didn’t want to be in this profession, she was forced to be an actress. She feels claustrophobic and at one point, even wants to do something for her personal self as all her life she has been doing this for others.
You have been a superstar in your own right. How have you managed to maintain your sanity?
I look at it as a profession. When I go in front of the camera, I am a professional actress, I know what I am doing. I have read the script, and I am playing that character, I become that character for the camera. But once I am back home, I am a normal person, because that’s the way I’ve been brought up. Even when I was working in films, at the height of my career, my mom used to scold me to keep my room clean. I’d tell her that I’ve people to clean it for me, but she would say, ‘no, it is your mess, you got to clean it up yourself’. That’s how I am, once I am out of the studio and back home, I am myself, neither the actor, nor the star that people see one screen. At home, I am mother to my kids and my husband’s wife. It is a completely different life. I never lost myself in trying to be the star that I was on screen.
Like you mentioned that in the series, your character is very protective of her children, and doesn’t want her fame to affect them. Have your children ever had a bad experience because of your stardom?
Fortunately, I have not gone through something out of the world, or something so big that it would affect my family. What happens are very minor irritations, when paparazzi comes following us. If you come out of a restaurant, there are so many photographers, and not every kid likes to be photographed. That would be the greatest issue for us, but that’s too small to get bothered about. I give my kids that freedom, and tell them that if they want to be photographed, it’s fine; if they don’t want to be photographed, there have been times when I have asked them to go and sit in the car first and then I follow. That’s how we manage and they’ve learnt to deal with it, as they are old enough now. When they were little, it was a bit confusing for them, but now they’re fine.
