Women Have Found My Look Erotic: Kirti

After making quite the splash (pun intended) at festivals abroad, ‘Jal’ finally releases in India this week. We sat down with its lead actress Kirti Kulhari for a freewheeling chat about her character, her career lull, her film choices and her ‘comeback’ with ‘Jal’. Excerpts from the interview:
Tell us about your role in Jal
My character’s name is Kesar. She plays Bagga’s love interest and hails from the rival village that’s constantly at war with his. She’s an intense character with a strong sense of independence . She’ll do anything for the man she’s in love with, even if that included dying for him
Why take up a role so far removed from the person you are?
As an actor, you’re always looking to play someone you’re not but it wasn’t as alien as you think it would be. I have lived at my grandparents’ village home in Rajasthan for many summers and wanted to see if I could play out that role now that I had the opportunity to do so.
Your choice of films so far have been more indie than all-out masala. Why so?
I honestly see Jal as an all out Bollywood entertainer, except for the space that it is set in. It’s a good combination of sense and typical masala elements. I don’t look for a brand of film but for scripts that push me.  But yes, I do realise now that sometimes a script alone may not be enough...
Why?
Because every good script requires a support system to execute, market and release it in the manner it deserves.  Take last year, where I was in a film called Sooper Se Ooper. When you’re sitting in a meeting and you hear that Reliance is the studio, you think ‘Cool, I’m sorted’. However it had a very different fate from what I imagined. I’m trying to strike a balance now where I chose films only when I know that these other elements are also in place. And who doesn’t want to work in bigger films? Maybe I will take up these roles soon, if only for the fun of it...
And, of course, the money.
Yes, maybe...
Maybe?
Yes, well if it we have to put it as bluntly as that but it still wouldn’t entirely be about the money.  I’d have to be mentally prepared to do a Dabangg, Wanted, Welcome or Housefull.
Are you not now?
I'm not. Maybe I'd reconsider if it were a Salman Khan film but I wouldn't do a multi-starrer like Housefull.
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Why?
It may sound serious, even boring, but I'm here because I’m passionate about cinema. There's nothing else that drives me, not money, not fame. Today I have the fire in me to wake up really early every day and shoot like a dog. The day that stops happening is the day I won’t want to do it anymore.  I won’t do things I can’t relate to. Of course, this is the story now. Maybe you’ll meet me in a year and I'll be part of a masala movie. But I think that if  I could say no to these offers in my low phase, I’ll continue saying no to them if things get better from here on. It's been a conscious choice so far to look for good work, but who knows yaar, if something exciting comes my way then I might just do it.
You mentioned your low phase. Are you currently experiencing a high?
I think it's a better time for me than what I've been through in the last two years. I did a film like Shaitan...
Which was great.
Oh, absolutely. Ideally, I should have been in a very different place today but I instead had two releases after that people don’t even know of. I was almost invisible to people in the industry.  Jal feels like a comeback even though I had shot 70% of this film before Shaitan released. If Jal had released six months after Shaitan, it perhaps would have taken me somewhere else because of the film it is. But it's cool, yaar. The time is right and I’m more than satisfied with my work in the film.
Why do you think you weren’t able to capitalize on the post-Shaitan buzz?
When I look back I think that maybe if I had a good manager and a PR team, maybe I would have been at the right places at the right time. Being completely on my own after Shaitan was of no help and I didn’t want to be playing the parallel lead. Still, these two years have taught me to be patient. Instead of going insane about things are not happening, I shifted my focus to other things like completing my first year Masters in Psychology. Today, I like to believe that things come to you when you're ready for them.
What are your dream roles?
Meryl Streep as Julia in ‘Julie & Julia’. It’d be easy to pick Julie since she’s today’s girl, but I love Meryl and the way she carries herself in that film.
From Bollywood, it’d be Meena Kumari in ‘Sahib Biwi Aur Ghulam’ because there’s so much more going on under the surface of her character than Waheeda Rahman’s. Also, I don’t drink and I’ve always wondered what it’d be like to play a drunk character!
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You have some intimate scenes in Jal. What was filming that like?
When the role initially came to me, I had a lot of apprehensions. It was the same with wearing a bikini in Shaitan and the kiss with Kalki that I thought they were joking about until it actually happened! With Jal, the intimate scene was crucial to the story. This isn’t a case of aankhon hi aankhon main pyaar ho gaya. I bargained with Girish for the number of seconds the scene would last for but when it finally came down to filming, it was less of an ordeal than I thought it would be. Purab was an absolute gentleman, our director of photography is a woman and most of the sex, per se, is happening through shots of my back!
How have people reacted to it and you?
Really positively. I think Kesar’s overall look in the film is extremely sexy and I’m wearing what’s almost like a village bikini in some scenes. Women have come up to me and said things like ‘You look so erotic’. The compliments have been a little hard to handle, but it’s still all flattering.
My parents reacted a little differently. Every time I'd go back home my dad would ask “Haan toh beta, kuch changes hue hai film main?” and I’d go “Err, no”. My brother was curious about how the scene was shot. Overall though, I’m happy with how it’s turned out.