Known for her unconventional choice of scripts, Kalki Koechlin says it’s time Bollywood filmmakers sat back and got the idea of commercial cinema right. The actor, who also supports bold portrayal of women on the big screen, says filmmakers should avoid mixing entertainment with a moral story. “I find that a lot of times what’s wrong with commercial cinema is not the subject, but how when people are making an action film they end up putting gyaan in it. It’s not going to work,” Kalki, 28, said in an interview.
“A lot of people are still very confused when they write a script. They put a very serious subject and a light subject together, and put everything into one film to please everyone,” said Kalki who picks Dabangg as one of her favourite masala films. “People need to either do a full-on masti film like Dabangg because it’s plain entertainment, or try and put together a real story,” the Indian actor of French descent said. Her parents are French nationals settled in Puducherry.
The writer-actor, who penned That Girl In Yellow Boots with her husband, Anurag Kashyap, feels few filmmakers hit the bull’s eye in commercial entertainers. “I think someone who does that well is Imtiaz Ali. He makes commercial films, but still there’s some realism to his stories. His characters feel like people from day-to-day life,” she said.
Kalki, whose husband Kashyap is popular for distinct and out-of-the-way films like Black Friday, Udaan and Dev.D, has been breaking stereotypes ever since she made her Bollywood debut in 2009. A theatre enthusiast, the 28-year-old stepped into filmdom with Dev.D, in which she played a young girl who becomes a victim of an MMS scandal and ends up becoming a prostitute. Following that, she went on to feature in movies like Shaitan, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, That Girl In Yellow Boots and My Friend Pinto.
She feels Bollywood needs to offer stronger roles to women. “We need a lot of bold roles in Bollywood. Until we have a lot of those films, our mainstream actors are not going to take them up, because they won’t be popular or common. We need to push that. India is changing, women are on top in every other realm and yet our heroines are the hero’s sidekick. I hope that more writers see that potential in women-oriented scripts, or even if not women-oriented scripts, where the woman is treated in a strong, powerful, real way,” said Kalki, who gives kudos to Vidya Balan’s daring act in The Dirty Picture.
