10 Years of Taapsee Pannu: From Manmarziyaan to Pink, looking at her best scenes so far

Taapsee Pannu’s film choices are always intriguing, and equally interesting are her director choices, or the directors that choose her for their films. The directors in her repertoire range from David Dhawan (Chashme Baddoor, which turns 10 today) to Neeraj Pandey (Baby) to Anurag Kashyap (Manmarziyaan, Do-Baaraa). It has been a decade since she began, and most likely, her film section may only get more explosive and exciting.

Till then, as she turns 10, we turn the clock and revisit some of her best scenes from her best films:

Baby (2015)

That in a film that stars Akshay Kumar, a female character gets to kick butts and deliver punches and do all the destruction is worth the price of your ticket. Pannu and Sushant Singh engage in a brutal brawl inside a seedy hotel room in Nepal that culminates into Singh gasping for breath and Pannu’s searing demeanour intact. When Kumar enters the room, he stands still for few seconds, staring at the actress and letting the fact sink in she literally overpowered the man they were out to nab.

Pink (2016)

Many moments stand out, but the one that hits home is the No Means No monologue by Amitabh Bachchan. This comes after Pannu’s character confesses she said no to her male friend’s advances that traumatic and tumultuous night. When that question is thrown at her, she recollects her shattered self, eats her words (she only says no), and shakes to the core. We have heard what she said, but the baritone needs to get louder for higher effect.

Manmarziyaan (2018)

This is arguably her best so far, her finest and most ferocious outing in a decade-long career. It doesn’t get more ironic than the fact that her character is called Rumi, but there’s merely anything musical about her. Okay, she’s definitely a loud speaker and a ticking time bomb that can explode the moment you earn her wrath. She’s in a love-hate relationship with a slacker called Vicky (Vicky Kaushal) and their bickering defines most of the essence of Manmarziyaan. In one key scene, when Vicky asks Rumi to pay the bill for lunch, she bursts with rage. Here’s a man who swings between running away from his responsibilities and running after the woman he loves. And when he does express his love to her after her fiery monologue ends, her heart quickly melts and what follows is a deeply intimate moment. This whole scene sums up the unpredictability of this wild couple, and maybe love too.

Badla (2019)

Who said you need to work with your contemporaries to strike a chemistry? Look at Pannu and Amitabh Bachchan’s chemistry in this Sujoy Ghosh thriller. It may have been a remake of a film called The Invisible Guest, the comfort the two share on screen is certainly visible. Bachchan plays a lawyer who has to bail out this callous woman who’s too ambitious for her own good. When he refuses to believe her plea, she throws a smirk and says, ‘Hum kuch aur bhi discuss kar sakte hain.’ The woman surely knows a thing or two about shrewdness.

Haseen Dillruba (2021)

Here, in the film’s best scene, the spotlight shines a little more towards Vikrant Massey. Without making it sound or look too skewed, this is Pannu’s most glamorous and glittery role till date, she truly plays a seductress who’s hiding many skeletons in her closet. One such skeleton is a sexual relationship with a man outside her marriage. She gets married to a naïve fella (Massey) who’s too timid to throw himself at her. When she breaks the news of her affair to her husband while he’s having mutton for dinner, he never reacts or utters a word. Either he’s too shocked to respond, or the mutton is too delicious.

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