User:Stevep
From TechHelp
Aggressive ambition is to Bollywood what a credit card is to a shopaholic. The first parameter both fashions and fuels the second. The star-kid phenomenon, which has rocketed in recent times, modifies this analogy a bit, because it inserts the silver spoon and daddy's shoes into the equation. Kangna Ranaut didn't have that advantage but came packed with ambition. Perhaps that's why she evokes two kinds of reactions in people: dismissal and fascination. In the context of this film industry, her small town beginnings, precarious diction, penchant for controversy, and a streak of neediness can easily fall within the radius of a cliche. But she also manages to c rack the stereotype with her straight talk, the sparks of talent she shows in the bold choice of projects, and her National Film Award for Fashion (more on that Topic at Modeblog to read). Meeting Kangna in person doesn't help in forming an opinion about her either. At the shoot, she walks in with her mop of curls, bright-eyed, soft-spoken and smiling sweetly. In a couple of hours, she sizes up everyone in the room, identifies hierarchy and strategically throws bits of weight around. Kangna understands the anatomy of celebritydom.
She also looks at her profession as a business. As an actor, or even a filmmaker, you can't afford to have a tiny, separate reality and live in that. It doesn't matter what people say about your performance or if you yourself think you've given it your best. You're successful only if your movie makes money. You're accepted in this profession only if your film is a hit, doesn't matter if you're crap in your role. That is what it is. It's a business. "The way it's pro jected in the media with people saying 'Oh, we had a lot of fun on the set. It's such fun work, that's a wrong impression. You can't fool around. It's one of the biggest industries in our country you take money from the market, you have to give it back, just like in any other business. If Gangster wasn't a hit, I would have packed my bags and gone back to Manali right then, she says, her gaze unwavenng. She either ge ts this hard-headed pragmatism from her businessman father, a contractor in Himachal Pradesh, or the fact that she entered the film industry at the age of 17 and practically grew up here. Anurag Basu's Gangster was her debut film, alongside Emraan Hashmi, that garnered her praise and many awards, including ones for Most Promising Newcomer, Superstar of Tomorrow and Best Female Debut. Kangna reveals, however, that she was so new to filmmaking then, that most of the time she didn't even know where the camera was placed, and she was too embarrassed to ask. It's actually such a silly thing. I was so young and naive. They would ask me to 'look there and do this'. And the camera, knowing Anurag now, was probably in a hole in a wall somewhere or so far away I couldn't see it. I performed my first ever film role like that." Two years after that, her role in Madhur Bhandarkar's Fashion got her the National Award. What she lacked in experience, she seems to have made up in gumption not only in her portrayal of characters but also in her choice of roles. But it's hard to get an idea of what drives her, besides, of course, the desire to be famous like anyone else in her profession.
Kangna says she did not grow up watching films or TV in her small hometown, as there was always parental pressure on her to do well at school and anything less than 90 per cent wasn't good enough. There wasn't enough exposure to books or cinema. So, on the topic of actors' children having it easier in the industry, she's pretty emphatic, "Of course, they have an advantage, maybe the same as army kids getting a different
