Taapsee Pannu has remained to be a pretty vivacious actor who has perfectly fitted in a variety of roles as offered to her. Whether it is Shaad Ali’s sports drama Soorma (2018), Anurag Kashyap’s love triangle Manmarziyaan (2018) or Sujoy Ghosh’s action thriller Badla (2019), she has proved her acting skills in almost every domain. This time Taapsee is depicting a pretty more challenging role in Ashwin Saravanan’s Tamil film Game Over telegraphing her emotions sitting on a wheelchair.
In the film, Pannu plays the role of a video game programmer which is a multi-language thriller. The film, Game Over is written by Saravanan (Maya) and Kaavya Ramkumar, which follows Swapna (Pannu), as a confined video game programmer battling with her home invasion.
Talking about her role in this thriller film, Taapsee shared to a media house, “She is in a wheelchair and on top of that, her house is invaded. That was a challenge, and had it not been there, I would not have done the film. I usually explore a lot with the physicality of my character. If the role is going to be comfortable, I might as well sit at home.”
The film is also starring Vinodhini Vaidyanathan and will be releasing in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi on June 14.
Pannu describes her character Swapna in Game Over as a fierce survivor who is a superwoman but is a real person who struggles with her demons as well.
Explaining her role, Pannu said to a media platform, “An incident happens to her and she survives through it. A year later, she realises that the symptoms of her trauma have resurfaced. The anniversary effect triggers emotions and changes in the body. We have to see if a survivor will survive once again.”
Talking about her preparations for this challenging role, she said, “Since she is a programmer, she plays a lot of video games. People who play a lot of games have a way of dealing with things. Video games play a pivotal part in the film. A lot of scenes are shot like a video game.”
She further added, “Being in a wheelchair for most of the movie was new to me,” she said. “To do that for 60% of the film and 12 hours every day for 25 days was physically and mentally traumatising. But I am happy I came out sane out of all of this.”
The producer of Game Over, Sashikanth, offered the film to Taapsee soon after she appeared in the comedy-horror Kanchana 2. Before making a mark in Bollywood, Pannu had started her career in Telugu and Tamil cinema. Her debut was the Telugu-language Jhummandi Naadam (2010) and she also earned praises for playing Irene, a timid Anglo-Indian in Vetrimaaran’s Tamil drama Aadukalam (2011). She has also featured in Telugu cinema (Neevevaro, 2018, Anando Brahma, 2017) and had last appeared in Tamil in Kanchana 2 and Vai Raja Vai in 2015.
Talking about her signing Game Over, Taapsee Pannu said, “As soon as I signed Game Over, I started getting a lot of interesting options in Tamil as well,” she said. “I might be signing something very soon, and will do something every year.”
The other upcoming films of Taapsee includes- Tushar Hiranandani’s Saand Ki Aankh alongside Bhumi Pednekar. The actors play 60-year-old sharpshooters in the Anurag Kashyap production as inspired by two sharpshooters from Uttar Pradesh, Chandro and Prakashi Tomar.
