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Kangana Ranaut walks in looking like spring in a floral pink concoction. It is a hot Sunday morning in New Delhi and Ranaut is about six hours from picking up the National Award for best actress for her role in the 2014 superhit, Queen. This is her second National Award in a career spanning just over a decade, having won earlier for best supporting actress in Fashion (2008).
How does it feel after the long struggle from Mandi in Himachal Pradesh to the top in the Indian film industry’s capital, Mumbai? “It feels good. I am being offered the work I deserve. It is like being aroused for a climax because this is what I have worked hard for,” says Ranaut, tongue firmly in cheek. I burst into laughter and she joins in.
Ranaut is on a high and it shows. This fashionable, hyper-confident 28-year-old, who makes a very quotable interviewee, is far removed from Rani, the girl she plays in Vikas Bahl’s Queen. After being ditched on the eve of her wedding, Rani refuses to cancel her honeymoon. She goes alone on the trip to Paris and Amsterdam, discovering herself and her confidence in the process. Ranaut is Rani, as she wears a shapeless cardigan and clutches at her bag on the streets of Paris or Skypes with her parents every night. She is every middle-class girl’s hero when she returns the engagement ring to her hapless fiancé at the end of the film in a scene bubbling with unstated ebullience.
How does it feel after the long struggle from Mandi in Himachal Pradesh to the top in the Indian film industry’s capital, Mumbai? “It feels good. I am being offered the work I deserve. It is like being aroused for a climax because this is what I have worked hard for,” says Ranaut, tongue firmly in cheek. I burst into laughter and she joins in.
Ranaut is on a high and it shows. This fashionable, hyper-confident 28-year-old, who makes a very quotable interviewee, is far removed from Rani, the girl she plays in Vikas Bahl’s Queen. After being ditched on the eve of her wedding, Rani refuses to cancel her honeymoon. She goes alone on the trip to Paris and Amsterdam, discovering herself and her confidence in the process. Ranaut is Rani, as she wears a shapeless cardigan and clutches at her bag on the streets of Paris or Skypes with her parents every night. She is every middle-class girl’s hero when she returns the engagement ring to her hapless fiancé at the end of the film in a scene bubbling with unstated ebullience.
Ranuat won National Award for Queen
Did Ranaut live Rani’s life when she was growing up in Mandi? “I understand her but am not her, just like I understand Revolver Rani but am not Revolver Rani,” says Ranaut as she settles onto the couch of her suite at the Taj Mansingh. Sai Kabir’s Revolver Rani (2014), which did not have quite the same success as Queen, is a brilliant film about a female don who craves to be a wife and a mother.
The directors of both these films, relative unknowns, claim that Ranaut was their first choice. “When I wrote the story of Queen, I thought of Kangana as she would be familiar with Rani because she comes from a small town,” says Bahl. Kabir, for his part, chose Ranaut for the adventurous spirit she had shown in her choice of films: Gangster (2006), Fashion, Once Upon a Time in Mumbai (2010), Rajjo (2013) and Tanu Weds Manu (2011). There were no pointless item numbers from her in these films, and very few boring bimbo roles.
How on earth did a 16-year-old with no connections in the incestuous Indian film industry, reach a place where scripts are being written for her and the trade is picking up films that star her in the lead role? It is a creative and commercial peak that took Madhuri Dixit and Sridevi many years of hard work to achieve.
Ranaut shrugs. She claims that the commercial bit is something that she cannot understand because she doesn’t have the “bandwidth” for it. As for the creative part, “I can’t express the technique. But I spent 15 days roaming around in Paris in the clothes that Rani wears. For my role in Tanu Weds Manu Returns (due to release later this month), I spent a week on the Delhi University campus (in disguise) watching how the girls behave,” she says. Kabir reckons that Ranaut’s power of observation is very strong and she uses her observations as references. “She looks for a prototype (on which to model the character she is playing),” he points out.
Like most actors, Ranaut claims that she did not set out to become one. She was the sensible child of the family, all set to become a doctor. But while giving her pre-medical exams, she realised that she was not cut out for medicine. It was while studying at DAV Model School in Chandigarh that a whole world of possibilities opened up. “There were people who were blogging, sculpting, there were so many things one could do. I realised that my parents didn’t know everything,” she says. They were devastated when their daughter decided to move to Delhi to figure out her calling.
Ranaut learnt music and dabbled with modelling before discovering theatre. She worked with veteran director Arvind Gaur. “He was very encouraging. He said I should try my hand at films since that would help me support myself better,” remembers Ranaut.
When model agency Elite sent Ranaut to Mumbai for a catalogue shoot, she auditioned for Gangster with the other models. The producers took six months to get back to her. But Ranaut hung on. She shifted to Mumbai, lived in a woman’s hostel where she slept on mattresses on the floor in a room shared with several girls. Her English was inadequate (she was from a Hindi-medium school), she had no money and life was tough.
In Gangster, Ranaut played a somewhat spoilt, neurotic character
“It was not the best experience I had. But I wasn’t in a place to take decisions, I was just trying to make ends meet. I was young enough and hot-blooded enough to not worry about anything. But many times I did have doubts that I had not done the right thing, that I had taken too many chances,” says Ranaut. What was Mumbai like? “Mumbai looks different from a train, auto, taxi. Now I see it through a BMW,” she laughs
Ever since Gangster where she played a somewhat spoilt, neurotic character, Ranaut has done roles that show her as obsessive, drunk, spoilt or neurotic. And she had done them well. To break out, she signed on some disasters such as Double Dhamaal (2011) and Rascals (2011). It is, however, films such as Once Upon a Time in Mumbai and Tanu Weds Manu that showcased her talent. Last year, she did a two-month course in screenplay writing from the New York Film Academy. Does she miss the fact that she did not learn acting? “I am happy that I did not learn it early. Now I would like to do an acting course,” she says.
The thought sets her off. “I would love to work in French, Italian and American films. Acting is such a wonderful way to live a different life, experience different cultures,” she muses. But isn’t it extremely hard work? The physical and emotional stress can undo the best set of nerves. “A good artiste never stops believing in the beauty of life (no matter what grime he has been through). He always surrenders when the director says ‘action’ and tries to see himself through the eyes of the director,” she rattles off.
That is the theory. The reality is that “it is very hard to surrender, especially when you know that every pore of your skin is being watched by the camera”. She admits, “It is very difficult to get out of a director what his vision is for a film or a character. Many of the things I did in Queen were not conveyed to me quite like that.”
And now that she has found her calling what does she think of the industry that has become her home? “It is full of weak people,” she says scathingly, and then adds hastily, “Of course, there are strong people too, otherwise it wouldn’t be what it is.” The thing that really bugs her though is gender disparity. “It operates at many levels — the kind of money that an Aamir Khan or Ranbir Kapoor are paid is shocking. How differently are male and female actors treated! The thinking is that girls peak in 2-3 years but the guys last for 20 years.”
Now, can the girl from Mandi change this?
