Bollywood actor Kalki Koechlin is someone who has tried her hands in both off-beat and commercial films. The ‘Made In Heaven’ actor has also given us some incredible work of act in the OTT platforms. Although she is itching to resume work, the coronavirus lockdown has been a blessing in disguise for the new mommy.
Talking to Hindustan Times, Kalki shared how she’s been spending the lockdown period with her 5-month-old daughter, Sappho. She also opened up about the insider vs outsider debate surrounding Bollywood.
“I am somebody who’s always been on the go and juggling several things and suddenly here I am, spending time with my baby and I am like, ‘oh, I should be doing more with my life.’ But I also realise that everyone’s going through this identity crisis at this time.”
Talking about her decade long journey in Bollywood, Kalki says that working with different directors has given her the treatment of all kinds in cinema. “I am grateful for a lot of the work I have done. Now, I am at a point in my career where I am not in as much as a rush as I was before because I have a child.”
“I am also just looking to do work which lasts and it is a time where things are changing.”
She further adds that we need more shows with strong female leads. “I think we have seen the big, blockbuster films for too long. We need more and more women telling the stories. We have seen a lot of toxic masculinity in the commercial cinema,” she adds. Speaking from her experience as an outsider in B-town, the ‘Margarita With a Straw’ actor said:
“I have never wanted to be an insider and I am happy to be an outsider. I see Bollywood as a business, not as a family.”
“I see it as a place where we work, be professional and we leave. It is not supposed to be a place where you try to make friends and it is like that for a lot of people. I think there is a popularity contest and there is a lot of pressure to try and be in a certain party or a place at the right time. There is a side to it but I also think we are living in a time where you are able to create your own content and be your own person without adhering to that system.”
“And it’s a choice that you make, and I have made that choice to do business in Bollywood without being in Bollywood all the time.”
Speaking of nepotism she says that it’s omnipresent. “When we talk about this kind of system which is based on nepotism, it’s in every business. We have seen it in politics in business in other fields of life. But I don’t think Bollywood alone is guilty of nepotism, it’s all over.”
When quizzed on the outsider vs insider debate, she says, “It’s no point talking about fairness because it’s a business. If you’re bringing in money and success to the system, the system will change and it will make space for you. So how do you make what you do valuable to the system, that’s what we need to do as an actor or find another way.”
However, she adds that outsiders do have to work a lot harder to get the job. “It is unfair that those of us who have come from outside have to work thrice as hard to get that part or probably don’t get it because somebody else who is connected gets it. That’s how it is and the only way to change that is to make yourself valuable.”
Kalki who has worked with several star kids in many of her movies says that she hasn’t felt that she was treated differently or less than them on a set.
“The only time when I felt that was when I had divorced Anurag and then there’s this weird sense of ‘oh, do we invite Anurag or do we invite Kalki’. And it’s not either one of our faults. I felt a little bit of that popularity contest at that point. Once you’re doing the job I don’t think there is that sense of being an outsider, it just trying to get that job in the first place that’s difficult,” she concludes.
You can watch the entire interview here:
Well, let’s hope Kalki gets to go back to work ASAP so that we see more of her impactful performances on our screens.