Deepika Padukone to Take up the Role of Acid Attack Survivor Laxmi

Deepika Padukone will both act the lead role and co-operate in Meghna Gulzar’s next film inspired from the life of Laxmi Agarwal.

This is the first project of Deepika since the blockbuster Padmaavat of Sanjay Leela Bhansaliwas released early year. While Meghna’s Raazi was also considered one of the box office hits so far.

The story of a courageous girl

The storyline based on a true story of a girl called Laxmi who was assaulted in 2005. The reason behind is that she refused to get married to that man. That violent attack destroyed her beauty and caused her several surgeries. The little girl had to suffer from both mental and physical pain.

Later, she did a job involving helping the victims of acid attack and promote campaigns against acid attacks. She even asked for a new law and a ban on the sale of acid. She was honored and granted the US State Department’s International Women of Courage Award in 2014 by Michelle Obama. Laxmi made all the world admirable when breaking the rules and appeared at London Fashion Week to raise awareness about violence against women in 2016.

After days of speculations, Deepika finally chose to produce the venture with Meghna Gulzar. Deepika revealed that she was deeply moved by the story of Laxmi who was full of courage, energy, and optimism even in dark times.

According to director Gulza, Laxmi’s story can be seen as a lens in which we can explore the consequences of violence in current society. “Awareness is the first step towards change”, she stressed. About choosing Deepika to feature as Laxmi, Meghna shared that Deepika would do a bang-up job to the story. More importantly, Deepika’s physicality fits into Laxmi’s character.

Before joining Gulzar’s project, Padukone had a plan to co-operate with director Vishal Bharadwaj and Irrfan Khan. However, this venture was postponed because Irrfan was not in good health. Later Irrfan revealed that he has been detected with cancer and undergone surgery in England.

Previously, some veteran actors turned producers and achieved great success namely Priyanka Chopra and Anushka Sharma. Deepika is likely to follow in their footsteps.