Vidya: Ash was offred my role

Now it can be told. Playing the woman possessed in Priyadarshan's Bhool Bhulaiyaa was not easy …no make that, a harrowing traumatic and lethal experience for Vidya, so much so that one day while doing the climactic dance of death as the woman-possessed, she simply fell to the ground.Recalling the trauma she smiles, "For a person like me who never gets outwardly angry, never raises her voice and never gets violent getting into character as Manjulika the wronged demoniacal abusive ghost was something I thought I'd never carry off.Hats off to Priyadrashan for having so much faith in me. I'm aware the role was offered to Aishwarya Rai. I was also aware that Shobana and Jyothika rocked in the Malayalam and Tamil versions of the film. They were both accomplished dancers.I had to learn Kathak from scratch, then perform a proper formal dance with a trained dancer (Vineet) and also do a demented raging out –of-sync dance performance as a woman-possessed.On top of that the song for the dance came in just two weeks before shooting."In addition to the dancing she had to enact the part of a woman who's possessed by the ghost of a dead dancer. Almost like Linda Blair in the cult horror film The Exorcist in the 1970s.Was Vidya as traumatized as Linda? "Playing such a psychologically disordered woman who's outwardly so normal changed my perception of people who suffer mental trauma. I had isolated myself completely for three days.When I wasn't shooting the traumatic climax I just walked around the haveli listening to the music and the sounds of silence staying complete IN CHARACTER. Even my parents couldn't reach me on the phone."