She kicks, punches, shoots, slays, breaks bones and shatters glass — soaked in blood, sweat and revenge — Kangana Ranaut as Agent Agni in the just-released action spy thriller Dhaakad, delivers one deadly blow after another, like a true action star. The actress, who has skillfully flexed her muscles in various genres earlier, has now cracked the action space — with guts galore. In a conversation with us, she talks about her warrior spirit, how playing a hardcore action girl was cathartic and what we need to do to save our film industries. Read on...she is on fire...

I was not involved in it at all, because we had such a talented team, and Razy (director Razneesh 'Razy' Ghai) is so competent. Having directed about 400 ad films, he had such a clear and international vision. When I was approached for this film, I was wondering...will I be able to fit into this part at this age and stage? At the time when I started my career, I did not fit into the format of a Bollywood heroine, and I was always trying to find my ground and figure where I belong. I was quite jobless after Gangster. I would get offered those druggie, edgy or homeless kind of roles. When I did Fashion, also because of my body type, I was appreciated, and then I did Krrish 3. Back then, I felt that I would be offered more action roles, so maybe I could create a category for myself and be able to fit in. So, I actively trained in kickboxing and martial arts. Lekin aisa kuch hua hi nahi, things derailed for me, and I did films like Double Dhamaal. I was disoriented and stopped training. Then films like Queen happened, aur main acting mein bahut deep chali gayi, and with every character, I would try to learn accents, gain weight and lose weight. Cut to two years ago, I had put on 20 kilos, and personally, too, I have metamorphosed into an individual where there is a certain way I think and dress… (like I wear a lot of sarees now). I have come to be a certain person.

Yes! Razy was sitting in front of me and telling me about this role and I was thinking about those days when I wanted it so badly. And there I was, as far as I could’ve been from this character (Agent Agni). When he approached me, I was shooting for Thalaivii, and mentally and physically, I was in a different mind space. I was wondering whether I would be able to pull off all those looks, miniskirts and firing guns? It was not just the weight, there was a lot more resistance I had as a person. So, when I met him, in my mind, I was sure that I wouldn’t do it, but he didn’t give up on me. These different looks were a part of it, and my major concern was to be able to pull it off convincingly.

Florian Hurel was the make-up artiste and Sheetal Sharma designed the looks with the director, and to fit into their vision was my challenge. I tell this story to a lot of people. When I first met Salman Khan before Gangster, I showed him my portfolio. He advised me to meet Sanjay Leela Bhansali and said that you are someone who will fit into his films. I went to meet him with my portfolio, which showcased various looks. He went through my pictures, looked at me with great curiosity and said, “Are you a chameleon or what? You change with every look.” I asked him, “Sir, is it a good thing or a bad thing?” He said, “I don’t know, you will figure it out.” And it was such an appropriate answer because, yes, it was difficult to get a break in the industry. You don’t know what you are, and you could be anything. Once you are successful, I guess it is a boon. Razy wanted me for this part as he knew that as a spy on a mission, I could transform with every look. But for my first break in the industry, people could not slot me, and that became a challenge. So, it was good and bad. Over the years, I could not find my ground and say this is my space, which every actor has. At this stage, of course, it seems like a great thing.

I like action films, but the kind of grounded and raw action that you see in Dhaakad. The superhero kind of films and that kind of action is not my zone. I think Charlize Theron is somebody who looks tough and looks good doing action. You need that physicality, and you need to look convincing, and she pulls it off really well. Baaki toh thoda modelling type ho jaata hai.

Yes, the training was really tough. There is a 15-minute long action sequence, and it is something you have never seen before in our cinema. I trained in kickboxing and other martial arts, including Jiu-Jitsu and Krav Maga, to play this part. It is a draining role, and even to be angry, it takes a lot of your energy. We shot for 20-25 nights for that action sequence, and putting in that energy for days and days is exhausting. There are times your body is numb, you have no energy left, but you have to drag yourself on set. Having said that, for me, what works is that, by nature, I am a violent person. I mean in my ideologies. I have that thought process. If we were in different times, I would probably have been a warrior. My school of thought is not — tum ek thappad maaro, toh mein dusra gaal de doongi. I believe in, mujhe khoon do, main tumhe azaadi doonga. So, my very core is right wing. Coming from that space, this part was a bit cathartic. So, it is not like it was imposed on me, I also enjoyed it. It is in my nature, only that my body was not ready for it. In KGF - Chapter 2, there is this dialogue that the lead actor Yash says, “Violence, Violence, Violence! I don’t like it. I avoid, but, violence likes me.” I would tweak that for myself and say, “I like violence and violence also likes me (laughs!).”

The evolution of Arjun as a creative force is tremendous. When we did Rascals, I didn’t understand him as an artiste. We became good friends, and we would party together. During Dhaakad, whenever we sat together, he would talk about the film, how he could add to my character and how we could do certain scenes. It became such an inspiring experience to see how much he is consumed by the entire process and the extent to which he has grown. He is writing scripts, he wants to direct and is producing films. Also, when he was offered the part, people around him were apprehensive about him working with me, but he was so nonchalant about it. He is his own person, and I have huge respect for such people. He doesn’t roam around in herds; he takes his own call.

It is high time… kyun ki uss chhote se budget mein aap kya karenge? Woh 20-30 crore mein social message wali films ban sakti hai. They will mostly be offbeat films, not mainstream. The budgets are not to show off that we have so much to spend, but so that we get more creative freedom. Today, if Razy has brought in an award-winning DOP, Tetsuo Nagata, for Dhaakad along with the kind of action crew that we had, it is because we could monetarily back that scale. This is the liberty that every artiste wants. We also need a good budget for a woman-led film, so that we can deliver.

Yes, of course. For me, it was important to feel that I am well paid, and not exploited. Don’t I go to a set and give my 100%? There are so many injuries that I have taken upon myself for these roles. So, just because I am a woman, not getting paid as much as my male counterpart is a very sad and unfortunate reality. Ab mere saath aisa nahin hota hai.

Yes, sure. The medium also gives you a global platform and being a creative person to have that is great. I would love to explore it more.

I had said this long ago, that we should bring India together with our movies. While growing up, I didn’t know much about people from the South and their culture, but today, when we see their films, we get to know so much about them — what they eat, what they wear. Movies expose us to that. I was more exposed to American culture through their movies, over South Indian films or, say films from the North East. Cinema only brings us together. It’s high time that we come together and save our screens rather than let Hollywood take over, like what happened with the German and French film industries. We need to save our industry, and for that, we need to come together as one force.

Hopefully!

Offering him a chance to graduate from directing on television, to debuting in films, producer Mukesh Bhatt asked Anurag Basu in the early 2000s how much he would charge. Mukesh, well-known in Bollywood to be frugal with expenses, suggested, "Rs 7 lakh?"

Basu agreed so instantly to the number that, taken aback, and in that split sentence, Bhatt revised that Rs 7 lakh into a two-film deal! "In just two seconds, huh," Basu laughs. "But it was my stepping stone, I was just an outsider, getting to learn a lot; I would have done it for free," he says; no complaints still.

This would've been for his forgotten debut Saaya (2003, starring John Abraham, Tara Sharma). Having delivered a box-office dud, the sets for Basu's second film had also been mounted, when he had stopped showing up at the office of Vishesh Films (run by brothers Mukesh and Mahesh Bhatt). He told the producer, he'd "lost confidence" in the film they were about to shoot/start in a few days.

But there was a half-constructed set, paid for, while Vishesh Films were already reeling under a string of flops. "Ghuma phira ke", Basu narrated an idea around what Mukesh had suggested. Driving back home, he found actor Kashmera Shah sitting at the Barista coffee shop in Lokhandwala. He stopped to ask if she'd dance for a song, which Anu Malik composed in a couple of days.

They utilised that set for a track, Dil ko hazaar baar roka, and carried on with another film altogether. Which was? Murder (2004). It gave Basu tremendous box-office cred. The film went on to collect Rs 75 crore. And Basu received? Rs 3.5 lakh - second tranche of his two-movie deal - making him perhaps the best directorial ROI for a producer, in the history of Hindi films!

Male audiences across North India lined up to catch the skin-fest Murder - evidently inspired by Adrian Lyne's Unfaithful (2002) - mainly to ogle at Mallika Sherawat. It's Emraan Hashmi, the male lead, who became the single-screen sensation: "He became a rage!"

Every producer at the time, top ones included, had a DVD of a sleazy Hollywood film that they wanted Basu to convert into a Hindi movie! Murder itself belonged to a B-movie genre (that subsequently became a franchise).

How Basu elevated it still is with a certain level of soft lighting and warm aesthetics: "Aesthetics are in-built, you cannot change it. It's the way you see things. I used to also shoot television like that," he says.

In fact, you can notice even more of that - surely the film industry did - in Basu's Gangster (2006), a musical drama, loosely based on underworld don Abu Salem and his moll, '90s starlet Monica Bedi's escapades. Who became the star from that movie? Debutant Kangana Ranaut.

"Of the 20-25 girls we auditioned for the part, her face just stuck in my head - there was something unique about her," Basu recalls. Did he foresee her success? "In the beginning, she needed guidance for everything. But she is a really fast learner. I have seen her growth during the filming of Gangster itself."

What about her public persona, as the relentless online troll, if you may? Did he see this coming? "Not really. We usually don't meet, but whenever we do, this [public] persona is not the Kangana I [know] personally. So I think there are two Kanganas. Beech wali [the other one] I don't understand."

Basu, 46, Bengali boy from Bhilai, moved to Bombay to pursue a graduation degree in physics, and look around for work in the entertainment industry alongside. Lives of the young in the steel township he comes from are chiefly centred on cracking medical and engineering exams. He got exposed to story-telling and performance arts, because of the theatre group that his father ran as a hobby. And they'd travel with plays at amateur theatre competitions across India.

In the sense of Bollywood, Basu belongs to a productive class of the early '90s actors/filmmakers, from various parts of India, looking to build a career in showbiz, and who gradually took over Bollywood's reins later.

He started out as a 22-year-old assistant allowed to direct a scene in the popular television show Tara - putting his foot down among veteran actors, so they took him seriously, which was becoming an issue. He exited TV about a decade after, as the highest paid director: "I used to make as much from a month of TV, as I did from my first film."

There are also the common stories of doing producers' rounds, hanging around Prithvi in Juhu, approaching Shyam Benegal, Sriram Raghavan to assist. Also, accidentally, dancing behind Mithun Chakraborty, as the hero's friend, in a film called Dalaal (1993) - because the director was Bengali (Partho Ghosh), and they were looking for a bilingual Bengali assistant to help communicate at an outdoor location!

There is a scene in Vikramaditya Motwane's film AK vs AK (2020), where the self-referenced protagonist, director Anurag Kashyap, is casually referred to as Anurag Basu. This is partly true in the reverse as well, as it turns out, since Basu would get messages meant for Kashyap back when there were pagers for communication (or the lack of it).

In fact, they have a lot more in common, I discover, during this conversation, including Benegal, Raghavan, Prithvi, a play that both were meant to do for Makarand Deshpande. And, inevitably, stories around the adorable old miser Mukesh Bhatt!

Where similarities between Kashyap and Basu end is, of course, in their cinematic worldview. Even a gun-toting thriller with dames and dons, Ludo (2020), in Basu's hands, turns into a joyously musical carnival of atrangi/colourful/shiny characters! His films are more fantastical in their approach, yet experimental in their own right. While it may not seem so, he says, they are actually drawn from reality.

The semi-silent musical Barfi, he reveals, is based on a real-life girl Razia (played by Priyanka Chopra, and who she actually met later), and a boy with hearing impairment called Murtaza (that was Ranbir Kapoor).

Basu knew these two from a special school in Goregaon, which had a branch near his Andheri office. He had locked Barfi's script, the sleeper super-hit of 2012, at the same time as he'd finished writing Super 30, based on Bihari math wiz Anand Kumar, that later got made with Hrithik Roshan, directed by Vikas Bahl.

Likewise, the lead character (played by Ranbir) in the full-blast, theme-park adventure Jagga Jasoos (2017), of a young man who stammers, but not when he sings, is essentially Basu's long-time music collaborator, Pritam!

Katrina Kaif's character in the same movie, he says, is wholly modelled on his clumsy wife Tani: "Calamity Jane, that's her. She could be holding a cup, and be left with just the handle. Lots of stuff that happens [to Katrina] in the film has actually happened before me in real life with Tani."

Calamity is also how Jagga Jasoos got blasted as, by a wide section of the film industry, upon release - given how long it took to make it in the first place (roughly over four years). "Yeah, too long, actually," Basu admits. "We could have finished a year before. There is not a single thing I can pinpoint [for what went wrong]. Ranbir [the lead] was shooting and promoting four films [Besharam, Bombay Velvet, Roy, Ae Dil Hai Mushkil] during this time. I could have put my foot down and requested him not to. But then, Pritam also wanted time to make music. I didn't know where to balance. Even after all this time, we were rushing with post-production, five months before release!"

Then there was the story from Jagga Jasoos sets about veteran actor Govinda being hired, he'd even shot, and then was fired: "Govinda ji did come with us. With such delays already with the shoot, [there was confusion] if Govinda ji is coming on the set, or is he cancelling the flight, or is he taking the fight, or are we cancelling shoot? It was so unpredictable. I couldn't have taken that stress, yaar. We were shooting outdoor in South Africa, everything was lined up. I just had to [let go of him]."

Not that Basu isn't used to this level of stress - more so, a barrage of take-downs, post the release of a film. The biggest case study in his career might well be Kites (2010), a hugely ambitious trans-Atlantic release, headlined by Hrithik Roshan, with the Mexican tele-novella star Barbara Mori in the female lead.

Kites opened to theatres in India with desis wondering what language the film they had walked into was in - English, Spanish; or Hindi? The budgets clearly didn't match the public response to this immensely stylised romantic thriller.

Basu himself felt as lost during the making of Kites, he remembers, as the audiences did after its release: "Take a film like Gangster. I wanted to shoot in Korea. I asked my producer [Mukesh Bhatt] if I could. He'd be like, 'Here's Rs 3 crore - finish the film within it. Now I don't care if you go to Honolulu, or anywhere else.' So, I knew my budget; production was in my hands. That's what I was used to. With Kites, it wasn't like that. I was just going there and directing. And we would discuss how we are going to execute [the scenes]. I was not thinking of market, returns… It started out as a small, indie [film]. It was taking its shape, with four or five people making decisions. Also my vision and [producer] Rakesh ji's [Roshan] were separate. Eventually, yeh naa idhar ka raha, naa udhar ka [it belonged to neither an international nor a local audience]."

Which isn't to tone down Basu's own reputation, mostly suggested warmly by his colleagues, of him revelling in the chaos of filmmaking - deriving magic from the spontaneity of a moment, rather than over-planning. While this may cause major heartburn, if the money involved is massive, it has surprisingly served him well in the mainstream.

Actors who've worked with him often speak about showing up on the set, with little idea of what they're meant to do. The scene develops as they go along. This can be a scary process, yes. It hasn't stopped him from attracting some of the top Bollywood stars around. Case in point is Ludo (2020), with more bona fide movie-industry leads (Rajkummar Rao, Abhishek Bachchan, Aditya Roy Kapur, Pankaj Tripathi, et al) than you can fit into two-and-half hours, without each seeming like cameos.

"I was not like this when doing television. This process of mine started somewhere during the making of Gangster. Kangana was new. Shiney [Ahuja] used to come over-prepared. There used to be a struggle to get the performance right. Too many retakes. Also, when I started wearing the hat of writer, director and producer [with Life In A Metro], I didn't have to deliver a script to anyone." The key reason for playing it by ear, he believes, is that "actors don't usually get the full arc of a film." It's better if they live in the moment.

"Also, I don't commit to a scene till the last moment. In [Life In A] Metro, for example, there is a scene where Kay Kay [Menon] and Shilpa [Shetty] confess about cheating on each other. She talks about Shiney [Ahuja]. I was staging the scene, with Shilpa and an assistant, who's also an actor. And there's a dialogue that just slipped off the tongue; Kay Kay asks, 'Bachcha toh mera hai na?' [I'm the kid's dad, right?] That wasn't there in the script. It appeared in the heat of the moment on the set. I thrive on that actually."

Which is also similar to how Basu winged it with Life In A Metro (2007) in the first place. He had only written the script until interval point, when he met (then) UTV's head honcho Ronnie Screwvala for a narration. To adequately fill time, and keep Screwvala and others sufficiently entertained, he got composer-friend Pritam to tag along, and play music all through the narration. The script got sold, while he was halfway into fleshing it out!

Everybody calls Basu, Dada (for elder brother), in Bollywood. As Bengali adults are affectionately named - regardless of their age. Director Basu Chatterjee was Basu Da even to millennials; he died at 93. A well-known Bengali trait with Basu is actually his penchant for the adda (fun chat), as I can sense, while he generally eases into talking about his life, with a gentleness/lightness of touch that often eludes the successful/self-aware.

As a person/artiste, he finds himself connecting the most with the other great Bengali, Kishore Da - Kishore Kumar: "Every time I read about him, I realise, arre, he thinks like me - his madness, his world, it is fascinating." Basu has been sitting on the draft of a Kishore Kumar biopic for years, determined to make it. It hasn't worked out, yet. "It will be made by me, promise, very soon," he says.

Like Kishore Da, Basu is also a polymath of sorts. You can gauge that from his last movie, the mad, mad Ludo, that dropped on Netflix in November. He was the film's cinematographer, writer, director, producer, along with playing the role of the traditional sutradhar (narrator) on screen. This was one of the early movies to finish shoot while the pandemic was still on. Surely they would've taken adequate precautions shooting the final scenes. Although having sanitiser on set and shooting with a mask on isn't novel for Basu.

Shortly after the success of Murder, he was diagnosed with late-stage cancer. Doctors gave him a few weeks, max: "It just happened too quickly. One day I just saw my reflection, and I didn't know this is what I was looking like - the internal bleeding was happening, buckets of blood going out. I just wanted to breathe right, until I went on the ventilator for 17 days. It took a toll on my dad, actually. His health deteriorated after that. It was tough on my family."

There is a scene in Life In A Metro, where Nafisa Ali's character dies in an ambulance, in a traffic jam: "I thought this was going to happen to me, when I was being shifted from Lilavati [Hospital] to Tata [Memorial Centre]."

This was also the time Basu was in the midst of a film called Tumsa Nahin Dekha (2004, starring Hashmi, Dia Mirza). But the film, as he says, was all in his head. And he was struggling for life. Each day, he would relay instructions recorded into a dictaphone from his hospital bed, to keep the shoot going.

The treatment, of course, carried on for a couple of years: "I had become really thin; had my mask on. There were hospital bills to recover, with treatment in the ICU that had gone on for really long. There was a survival issue, with regard to money. I went to my old television colleagues at Zee and Sony, and they gave me shows to do. I had no film. So, it was back to square one. I did television for over a year."

He got on a film-set finally with Gangster: "I also had Life In A Metro to make. But decided that I may as well be with Vishesh Films at the point. [Producer] Mukesh ji used to carry a sanitiser in his bag, yell at me if I wasn't being careful. They were not greedy; they were careful about my health. They asked me to wait, and I didn't want to."

A close brush with death, one presumes, changes man forever. I ask Basu if he sees it that way - a before and after, as it were: "My rights and wrongs are the same. But I have become less cynical about things, I'm more positive."

On an observable plane, he concludes, "That is [also] when I decided to turn producer. [Life In A] Metro happened because of that. I thought, when I make movies, I should also make money. It is important to keep money for your family."

ANURAG BASU: I just wanted people to watch the film. Releasing it on OTT will be a new experience. The idea is to reach as many people as possible.

BHUSHAN KUMAR: It was heartbreaking to arrive at this decision because we made the film with a theatrical release in mind. During the first quarter of the lockdown, we had no clue how things would move eventually. Then, films started going directly to platforms one after the other. I wanted to wait and observe how things work in this scenario. Like any producer who has been making films for years, I just didn’t want to sell this film for a small profit, when we made the film with the intention to entertain people in theatres. We had to convince ourselves; we had a lot of discussions. I was not in a hurry to bring the film out. I could have waited, but Anurag felt that the freshness in the film’s story and treatment might get lost with time and that is something both of us didn’t want to sacrifice.

BHUSHAN: The songs are interspersed with the story in such a way that they can’t be separated from the narrative. Pritam came up with such amazing tracks. Anurag wove them in so wonderfully that the film will seem incomplete without the songs. What is also striking is that in a film like this is that, people don’t expect soft, romantic tracks. They expect grunge and heavy stuff. The songs are melodious and slow-starters, and they grow on you.

ANURAG: We have an on-going process. Even when we don’t know what I am making next, we work on tracks. Like the track Hardam Humdum was not made for Ludo, but it fitted in beautifully. Script-writing and music go hand-in-hand with us, and that is why the narratives in my films have a strong musical base.

PRITAM: Anurag thinks musically, and that is a huge plus. In a film like this, people would expect rock and heavy stuff, but it’s all mellow and sweet. It’s because, like in Ludo, there is an underlying emotion in all of Anurag’s films. A film like Gangster was violent, but look at the songs. There is a strong undercurrent of emotion in his edgy stories. He uses music to highlight the finer emotions, and he has a fabulous ear for music. When I was told Ludo will release on OTT, it didn’t affect me because I know the producer (Bhushan Kumar) is passionate about music before anything else. Toh woh to kuch bhi waste nahi jaane denge. He will ensure the music gets its due, and it’s happening.

PRITAM: The new normal has taken a toll on me. Scoring a track in the current scenario is so difficult. Things that took a day in the usual circumstances took about four days. Sending feedback and going back and forth with the tracks was taxing, but I was okay, because I could work while being around my family. I have now begun to enjoy it. I guess, in this new normal, we will all miss a lot of things of the past, but we will also cherish what we now have. 

The indicators of having arrived as a successful Bollywood heroine are as follows: the Khans should want you in their films, brands should want you in their ads, the industry should want you at their parties, and the audience should just simply want you. Basically you should be desired, respected, envied and lusted after in equal quantities. Until recently, the arduous path to capturing the imagination of a few storytellers and then the fantasies of many million Indian men had a standard trajectory which could be summarised as: Stun them with your beauty. Then lull them with your commercial viability. Finally, surprise them again with your talent. Since her debut in 2006 as the alcoholic girlfriend of a gangster in the appropriately named Gangster, Kangana Ranaut's talent has never been in question. What have been questioned are her diction, her onscreen and off-screen choices and whether she is too “edgy“. As Tanu Weds Manu Returns races to the 100-crore club and sets this year's highest opening weekend record, here are some of the unsaid yet cardinal rules for Bollywood actresses that Kangana Ranaut has now made a habit of breaking. Please note that breaking them is not in itself a prescription for success but at least there is comfort in knowing that they are not prerequisites.

1 GET YOUR BREAK BY HAVING A RELATIVE IN BOLLYWOOD/BEING A SUCCESSFUL MODEL/WINNING A BEAUTY PAGEANT
Unlike Deepika Padukone or Anushka Sharma who were successfully modelling when they got their break or Priyanka Chopra who won Miss World or Sonakshi Sinha and Alia Bhatt who are industry kids, Ranaut worked her way into Gangster without a family reservoir of connections and experience or a parallel thriving career.

2 DO A BLOCKBUSTER WITH THE KHANS
Ranaut has been working in Bollywood for 9 years but has never starred in a film with Aamir, Shah Rukh or Salman Khan as a leading lady. In an industry where the Khan stranglehold has now held for over two decades, that is quite a feat.

3 NEVER DO A SUPPORTING ROLE
A cameo for a friend is fine and so is an item number. But actresses looking to hit the big league usually do not take kindly to supporting roles. Yet in films like Fashion, Life...In a Metro and Krrish 3, Ranaut has consistently done supporting roles with no compunction.

4 CAREFULLY ALTERNATE A COMMERCIAL FILM WITH AN “OFFBEAT“ OR “MULTIPLEX“ FILM
Nothing wrong with doing a Piku after a Happy New Year, or a Finding Fanny after Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram Leela, or an NH10 after PK, or a Mary Kom after Gunday. It's definitely the safer and more practical way of gaining acting cred. But it takes a special kind of appetite for risk to do a supporting role in Krrish 3 and then go into a trifecta of risky films whose success hinges almost entirely on your shoulders like Rajjo, Queen and Revolver Rani. Even when it goes wrong, you have to applaud the guts.

5 ONLY WORK OPPOSITE STARS
While talented, Rajkummar Rao in Queen, R. Madhavan in Tanu Weds Manu and its sequel, and Vir Das in Revolver Rani are not big draws commercially. But that doesn't seem to be a consideration for Ranaut, whose next is Katti Batti with Imran Khan who is currently battling a reputation as box office kryptonite.

6 NEVER EVER ADMIT TO HAVING A LESS THAN IDEAL FAMILY
If you hear actors in Bollywood talk about their parents, it is like listening to someone read from a Mother's or Father's Day greeting card or the script of a Karan Johar film. It would appear that everyone who has birthed a Bollywood star is a supportive paragon of perfection descended straight from the heavens above. No one is compelling them to reveal the private mechanics of their family life but a modicum of truth every now and then would be nice. So when a Kangana Ranaut spoke of rebelling against her father, running away from home and the pervasive gender bias that seeps into everyday life in a refreshing interview with Anupama Chopra, her candour was completely unprecedented. Kangana Ranaut drops truth bombs quite casually, she doesn't bother with setting the stage or halting for a pregnant pause.

Her ruthless honesty is finally turning the tide in her favour. She is, she says, a “product of many coincidences, incidents and excellence“. Basking in the triumph of her double role in Tanu Weds Manu Returns, she tells KALPANA NAIR that the film was a risky choice, what she has learnt by not working with the Khans and how she ranks her own performances

Tanu Weds Manu Returns (TWMR) has grossed the highest opening weekend figure for 2015. Was it a risky film to take on?
Yes, it was a big risk because it is not a gimmicky film. It has a very sensitive storyline - it asks if you actually found a tame version of your spouse with all her imperfections removed, would you go for her or the person you first fell for? If the audience thought: 'This is ultimately Kangana, so what difference does it make whether he goes with Kangana 1 or Kangana 2?' then there would be no second part to the film. It was risky taking on the responsibility of ensuring that that you created two very different characters for the audience.

The last time a mainstream actress in Bollywood pulled off a central double role successfully was Kajol in Dushman (1998) and Sridevi in Chaalbaaz (1989). What is the key to doing a great double role?
If you assign two different body languages to both the characters, you can pull it off. But that is hard work. You really need go deep into the character's upbringing, experiences, future plans and ideology. Not many actors stress on the body language of their characters but it can help you create two different personalities and help the audience give into the illusion of two different people.

Why haven't we seen you in a film opposite the Khans or say, young stars like Ranveer Singh, Ranbir Kapoor, Arjun Kapoor or Varun Dhawan?
It's an amazing coincidence. My films may or may not work but they are mine and I have learnt to take responsibility for them. I don't just dance at parties to celebrate a film's success but say 'oh, it was the hero's film' when it flops. This has made me alert. I don't go, “Oh if that hero is doing this film it must be good“ or “I trust his instincts more than mine.“ I know actresses who, if a certain hero has been signed for a film, would chase the director for a role even without reading the script. Also, I came to the industry as this person who has nothing to lose so I have been relatively fearless. I also got really excited about the process of acting, making a career out of it, buying a house with my earnings, taking care of people. These are things you appreciate when you are an independent woman.

In a recent conversation with Irrfan Khan you told him that that your last four roles have been so challenging that they literally gave you grey hair. You have also been honest about your clashes with your father and your initial days of struggle in the industry. Where does this candour come from?
I am completely honest with myself and people love me because I think I am very pure. I have got nothing to hide. And I am so proud of my grey hair. My mother got hers in her late 40s and I got mine in my 20s.

In an interview, you rated your performance in Gangster higher than Queen. Why? How do you judge your performances?
Gangster's protagonist was too flawed. She had nothing going for her. If a woman betrays her lover, falls in love with another man, kills him and then commits suicide but the audience still felt for her, then it means that the actor has done a brilliant job. In TWMR, unlike Queen, I didn't have the luxury of delving deep into the psychology and mind of my characters. It is a plot-driven, commercial film and it has a particular rhythm which you can't break. I had to surpass my limits in this film. So in a way, it was a bigger victory for me (than Queen).

With TWMR heading towards the 100-crore club, you are being talked about as the `female Khan' or even 'mini Khan'. How do you react to the title?
For the longest time I was called 'Ranawat'. My father would call and nag me and I would try and correct my name in the press. Then the media started referring to me as 'Raut', then my grandfather would call me and say , “You have gone there and ruined our name.“ Just when they were getting it right, it has been turned it into 'Khan'. I have no intention of becoming a 'mini Khan' (laughs).