FILM INTERVIEW: KANGANA RANAUT
Young Actress May Take Over Bollywood Before Age 30
Bollywood actress Kangana Ranaut wasted no time landing those intensely dark and heavy roles. At age 19, she broke into the Hindi film scene with her Filmfare Award-winning role in 2006’s Gangster before nabbing a National Film Award and another Filmfare as top supporting actress for portraying the meaty character Shonali opposite Priyanka Chopra in 2008’s Fashion. This weekend, Kangana Ranaut seems to be at it again, this time tackling the substantially dark and heavy character of Rehana as the female lead opposite Ajay Devgn and Emraan Hashmi in Milan Luthria’s release of Once Upon A Time In Mumbai.
Yet, do not expect Kangana to let up, as she solely cares about entertaining audiences, irrespective of film genre. Whether it be a dramatic character such as the ones that have garnered her critical acclaim, or something a little more lighthearted and comedic, Kangana, who is in her early 20s, shared with the press her candid thoughts of how she sees the rest of her film career developing.
“I do movies for people who like my work and entertain them accordingly. I did what came to me,” she publicly proclaimed. “Of course I would love to do all kinds of cinema. However, I also have to play those characters that people want.”
So what, exactly, do people want? Well, Kangana has some idea, as several of her admirers have sent her correspondence filled with suggestions.
“Of late, I have been getting a lot of fan mail, and I could gauge from there that they wanted to see me in comic roles,” she confessed to the press. “This is why my newer crop of films has a strong comic element to them.”
Perhaps the upcoming films with a comedic bent are a perfect balance to the more dramatic features Kangana has already starred in, such as Gangster, Raaz – The Mystery Continues, Fashion, Life in a Metro, and, now, Once Upon A Time In Mumbai.
Yet, looking upon the horizon of the immediate future that includes films favoring a more lighthearted fare, one thing that is no joke is Kangana may appear to be overextending herself and committing to too many projects. After Once Upon A Time In Mumbai, Kangana has been associated with at least six projects, including Knock Out, No Problem, Tanu Weds Manu, Game, Double Dhamaal, and One and Only. If she actually carries through with all the above projects, Kangana would have had a role in as many as 11 films since winning a National Film Award in early 2009 for Fashion – and that is assuming she does not accept any more roles in 2011.
All that being said, Kangana actually believes she is doing just fine, mostly because she is still young, and last year’s film strike provided her with a sufficiently long enough break to give her the energy to spread herself thin for the next few years.
“Actually, I don’t mind that at all,” she proclaimed to the media. “The long break in between was not supposed to happen. Everything happened due to the recession followed by multiplex versus producers stand-off strike that made everything go haywire. The situation I am in today is something that is impacting most other people in the industry. It’s okay.”
Kangana hopes audiences will also echo better words than “it’s okay” when the credits roll at the end of each of her films, as she definitely has a lot on the table in the next year or so. The first order of business? Crossing her fingers for a positive reception to Once Upon A Time In Mumbai, which opens worldwide on July 30th.
