Daily Times

In a one-on-one conversation with actress Kangana Ranaut, she gets candid about work, family, not being available digitally and more.

She starts by talking about her absence on social media which is something a lot of fans have been finding the reason to.

“There are so many problematic things in the world and I’m a very conscious person, I’m very aware. I don’t want to be on social media and be bothered about problematic things that social media doesn’t provide solutions for. I can’t invest so much time on something that doesn’t deal with an issue. Rangoli says that people have taken advantage of my absence on the social media. She says that though I have helped people build hospitals and gifted a Rs 2 1/2 crore flat to my yoga teacher, nobody knows about these things as I don’t talk about it. Sometimes she makes videos of me to share online. I find it funny, but she feels it’s important. In my past relationships, I never made videos and even that went against me. Today, everything must be proved with photos and videos. How do I become a person who records and documents everything, so no one questions me tomorrow? I can’t live like that, it’s strange.”

Then the conversation went around ‘Manikarnika’, her directorial debut which has been winning hearts of people not only in India but all over the world. The film was announced to be included in Asia’s biggest film festival, Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival.

“It’s surprising because we never sent any entries to any film festival. We always thought the film is relevant to India, but it resonated with international audiences as well. When it released, I felt there were deliberate campaigns to kill it. Something like this validates the universal appeal of ‘Manikarnika’. So many people watched it but were hiding just because they didn’t want to speak about the film. Now, it seems like a sweet Cinderella story that has happened to us,” she said.

After talking about ‘Manikarnika’, Kangana Ranaut also got reminded of the controversies the film was in, from the fake horse video to Krish and Sonu Sood.

‘It’s surprising because we never sent any entries to any film festival. We always thought the film is relevant to India, but it resonated with international audiences as well. When it released, I felt there were deliberate campaigns to kill it. Something like this validates the universal appeal of Manikarnika’

“I know who released that video. Two other actors of the nepotism gang were also learning horse-riding at the same place as me. They practised for one day and got so sore that they didn’t return. I was galloping and doing all sorts of stunts. The wooden horse was only used for close-up shots. Just because they cannot ride a horse, they got jealous of me and released the video. I rode a horse in Rangoon too, it’s not new for me. Mishti said she was asked to speak up, but who is making her speak? It’s all about ganging up against me. Sonu and I share a personal trainer. Again, situations were manipulated to force people to speak against me. Some trade experts were forced to show our film’s collections as half of the actual numbers. All the people who pretend that they don’t have PRs send the maximum number of emails against others. One smear campaign was started by Karan Johar’s gang against me by paying reviewers. When I talk about it, people think I sound like a loony character, but what option am I left with?”