Kalki Koechlin talks about the art and craft of performance; both on the stage and on screen...
A magazine recently pegged Kalki Koechlin as one “among the foreign actresses struggling to create a niche for themselves in Bollywood”. Apart from being problematic at several levels, the sentence indicates that Koechlin has a ‘long way to go’ despite an impressive CV—sure, who doesn’t? It also suggests that Koechlin is essentially ‘foreign’. Yes, Koechlin (pronounced as kekla) was born to French parents. But, since her birth (in a village on the outskirts of Poducherry), the young woman has been a part of this country’s billions. “My parents were the first few people to plant the trees when Auroville was just a barren land with sand dunes. But they left soon after, by the time I was three. They travelled to Ooty, Mysore and Bengaluru.” And the only time Koechlin left India, was to attend a degree in drama and theatre from Goldsmith College in London. After her degree, she worked with a theatre company—Theatre of Relativity—for two years. From eight till 18, Koechlin was in Hebron School where she remembers being influenced by her English teacher Mrs Angie Dodds. “She was an animated woman, who would narrate stories beautifully. She also started the school’s drama club. I was eight.” It also helped that she was quite the mimic and often landed into trouble for imitating the teachers.
So, what was her first role? “I was angry and disappointed when I was selected to play a sheep in the Christmas Nativity. I was not even an angel!” she answers with a laugh. Fortunately, it was a speaking... um... bleating role. Kalki’s first “proper stage role” was of Titania from Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dreams. “I also remember a play called Beggar’s Bowl, which was my first dark role. My dark side had already come out at a young age,” she answers with a chuckle. “When Midsummer Night’s Dream was judged as the best play, I was thrilled! It led me to believe that I was a creative person, definitely useless when it came to mathematics or sciences. For me, it was always going to be either writing or theatre. So when I was applying for universities, the course offered by Goldsmiths seemed familiar.”
Script writing, set designing, acting and directing; it was quite a broad course that Koechlin took up. In her words, Goldsmiths was an unconventional theatre school with a heavy Left leaning, one which might have added to the overall ‘alternative’ life learning. Post Goldsmiths, Koechlin stayed on in London with the theatre group that her peers had formed, performing and touring. “We wanted to do relevant theatre. There were a lot of improvisations, the actors contributed to the script quite a lot. At the same time, I was trying to earn money by teaching drama at an all-boys’ school for about an year. My students were pre-pubescent and teenage boys. It was tough keeping their attention. I suspect they didn’t take me very seriously, but drama was a fun activity, and they liked me because I taught it.”
Despite the great start to a career in London, it was always about coming home for young Koechlin. “London is an amazing, eclectic city, but it is also tough to live in. If I had to choose any place in the world to stay, it wouldn’t be London.”
After she returned, Koechlin headed straight to Bengaluru were her family was. “Six months later, I had moved to Mumbai. I travelled to Mumbai basically to audition for a play, Casanova.” In between theatre to keep things floating, Koechlin tried her hand at modeling mostly for television before being shortlisted for the role of Chandramukhi (Chanda) in DevD. Thanks to DevD, Koechlin was soon being noticed and there were whispers about a French girl, a girl-woman with ‘beestung lips’ taking on roles both brave and different. Post DevD, industry people did seem to realise (a bit) that Koechlin was not interested to play the videshi bahu, the loose moralled white girl or the bimbette in the background. Koechlin also continued her work with theatre and remains one of those actors whose heart is strongly rooted in theatre—she calls it her acting gym. “As an actor the stage exciting. It’s not something I want to ignore or can. It doesn’t mean I don’t want to do simple commercial films,” she adds. Her following films were Shaitaan with debutant director Biju Nambiar, Girl in Yellow Boots with Anurag Kashyap, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara with Zoya Akhtar, My Friend Pinto, Trishna and the commercial success, Yeh Jawani Hain Deewani!
In between, Koechlin patiently handled the job of explaining to everyone interested, how she was not quite the “foreigner”. And her name. Or how her surname is pronouned.
Is it irksome to be constantly reminded of the so-called difference between her and the other actors around? “I don’t get offended but in some situations I feel conscious of it.” The constant reminders also stoked the creative fire. “Frankly, I never really knew where I belonged, which is why perhaps I wrote or got up on stage. I want to be understood, I believe all actors do. My affair with the stage is also about a curiosity— about me and the other. My parents let me be and there was never any code of conduct to follow or diktats on who I could be with. So, I have had a mixed set of friends. Perhaps that has fed my curiosity. I am always excited to meet people from all places. When I pick up a character I am far more excited researching her; what is she like, where is she from, what is she thinking.” Which leads us to pertinent point—what is the process of preparation?
“It really depends on the film that I am doing. For a commercial film there is a lot less detailing, may be because the character is more familiar. The film that I wrapped up recently Margarita With A Straw is one where I play a character with cerebral palsy. At the beginning, I was completely in dark about how to proceed. Then, I met, talked to and spend time with people who had worked with individuals with cerebral palsy and people who had the condition. I visited Adapt, an organisation run by my director’s cousin, they work with people with cerebral palsy.
“In this case, the preparation started with actual physical contact. I found it useful to start from outside and then internalise. I thought about the clothes that my character would wear. Stuff that is easy to slip on. Would she wear make up? No. How would her body be, how will her muscles develop? Afterwards, I peeked into the significance of what she is—how do people treat her and how does she react to the people? I always find it useful to start from the external.”
While she’s busy acting both in films and on stage right now, Kalki says she’s more comfortable on stage. “Writing does not give me the kind of high that acting does. Writing has always been therapeutic. I write poems and short stories when I get ideas. But you need energy for acting.”
An interesting bit about her; Koechlin is named after the Kalki avatar—‘someone who brings light in times of darkness’. So, no pressure then?