Anupama Chopra interviewed Kangana Ranaut on her show The Front Row a few days ago. We can’t encourage you enough to watch it. It’s not just what she says that endeared us to Kangana so terribly. It’s also her manner: carefully chosen words, fits of gigglyness and zero Bollywood insularity.
We know a lot of people whose primary attitudes to Kangana are:
a) a dislike of her accent (though we blame the usual class-screening of an unforgiving Bollywood media for this)
b) pure hatred because she contributed to a blob of cinematic horror also known as Madhur Bhandarkar’s Fashion
c) a general ambivalence and/or a seance-influenced sense that better roles await her
Just in case you were wondering, we used to cycle between b and c. Anyway, this interview has changed everything. Our ambivalence has given way to lots of fuzzy you-go-girlness.
When Chopra asks her why she doesn’t support the institution of marriage, she replies:
“But, with me the thing is, I don’t understand this. Why do people get married? I don’t understand the whole setup and the reason behind it….Especially for girls, I see it as a very big problem. Because they are never encouraged to be something…Every now and then we were scolded for not following instructions. The main instruction was, ‘how are you going to behave in your in-laws house’, even when I was tiny…We shouldn’t have a ready setup to be given to a man, like a fully trained dog to take care of the house.”
The rest of the interview has more gems: she calls all actors self-obsessed, makes fun of Bollywood directors, talks openly about her overcompensating style sense and relives the time she threatened to hit her father.