Huma Qureshi interview: On the long road to making ‘Baby Do Die Do’

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Actor Huma Qureshi opens up on her role as a hitwoman in the Hindi ‘Baby Do Die Do’ and why small-scale Bollywood movies deserve a chance in theatres

Published - July 14, 2026 04:46 pm IST

Actor Huma Qureshi. | Photo Credit: RAVICHANDRAN N

The trailer of Baby Do Die Do introduces Huma Qureshi’s character as “India’s first hitwoman”. Huma admits that she loves the title. “I enjoy being called a female action star,” she tells The Hindu. Released on July 3, 2026, the Hindi crime drama has Huma playing a deaf-and-mute assassin. The Nachiket Samant directorial dives into the dark underbelly of Mumbai, where circumstances force a young girl to become a contract killer.

Anurag Kashyap, who introduced Huma to Bollywood with Gangs of Wasseypur, threw his weight behind the movie, emphasising the need for giving independent movies a good chance to sustain in theatres. Huma, who has produced the movie with her brother Saqib Saleem, under the banner Saleem Siblings, says the long road to bringing Baby Do Die Do to screens was far from easy.

“It takes a lot to put together a female-led action movie,” points out Huma, on the sidelines of the Bengaluru leg promotion of Baby Do Die Do. “I know the long road I walked to make this happen. There is a belief that people don’t want to watch women in action films, and that female-led action movies don’t sell. We don’t get the kind of budgets male action movies get. I had to fight to mount this movie,” she says.

Huma Qureshi in the movie. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

In the film, Huma plays Baby, a highly efficient assassin who uses a seemingly ordinary umbrella as her weapon. She is troubled by her past and is far from the typical larger-than-life assassin. Baby Do Die Do has arrived right after the massive success of Maa Inti Bangaaram, featuring Samantha Ruth Prabhu in the lead. In the Telugu movie directed by Nandhini Reddy, Samantha plays a docile housewife with a violent, action-packed past. I ask Huma if people are responding to the vulnerability and grounded treatment of these characters.

“I enjoy action movies that are believable yet have fantastical elements in them, and those that keep you hooked with quirky characters and realistic world-building, “ she says. “With Baby Do Die Do, director Nachiket and producer Saqib worked on the script for four years, with endless jamming and rewriting. They introduced people to a new world, where a deaf-and-mute female assassin felt believable. She navigates Mumbai comfortably. She carries a gun in her umbrella, and we don’t explain how that’s possible, because that’s the world of the movies. People are enjoying these unique details,” she explains.

Huma Qureshi and Rachit Singh in ‘Baby Do Die Do’. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Baby Do Die Do was released alongside the Alia Bhatt-starrer Alpha, the hyped spy thriller and the first female-led installment of the YRF Spy Universe. There is a world of difference between the budgets of the two movies. In fact, the prevailing narrative in the post-pandemic period is that people aren’t willing to go to theatres unless it is for a ‘spectacle’ film.

“We love big-budget action dramas. However, we don’t always have the means or the tools to make them,” says the actor. “I don’t have Rs 150 crore to make such a film. So, should I not make movies at all? Creativity can come in any size and shape. A lot of people told me that movies like Baby Do Die Do don’t have a safety net. But I am extremely passionate about cinema. Saqib and I want to tell interesting stories. Also, it’s not a film we decided to produce from the first. We did approach many producers with no luck. So the only option was to take full accountability of the film.”

Huma stresses that small-scale movies need time to build momentum. “We have had a very limited release; it’s not even 500 screens. We are constantly figuring out the best centres to release a movie like this. I am finding my audiences, and they are growing slowly. Not every film needs to be declared a hit in the first 72 hours of its release. We must create a model which allows films to breathe and for people discover them slowly.”

ALSO READ: ‘Baby Do Die Do’ movie review: In the mood for Mumbai

Baby Do Die Do reminds you of the Bollywood of the late 2000s and early 2010s, when the likes of Kashyap, Sriram Raghavan and Vishal Bhardwaj made realistic, content-driven movies. “Nachiket grew up watching these greats. There are plenty of Badlapur Easter eggs as a homage to Sriram. And those who loved Andhadhun haven’t disappeared. We have to keep supplying them with similar types of movies,” she says.