Bollywood perks don’t appeal to me: Kalki Koechlin

There’s no doubt that actor Kalki Koechlin — best known for her unconventional roles in offbeat films like Dev D and Emotional Atyachar — is enjoying her foray into mainstream Bollywood, but also by her own admission, “theatre continues to be my first love.”.  That the actor for now has no time to pursue theatre any more is something that she’s also learning to cope with, apart from dealing with the star treatment that comes with doing a mainstream film.

“But these perks don’t appeal to me,” she says candidly. “I enjoy the different formats of storytelling, that’s all. Be it theatre or offbeat cinema or a masala movie, each have different sensibilities, a different way of bringing alive characters and that process is artistically and creatively stimulating,” adds the actor, who’s next big screen outing will be Zoya Akhtar’s Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara.

That is, if her internationally acclaimed film That Girl in Yellow Boots directed by boyfriend Anurag Kashyap doesn’t release first. “It’s bold and meant for mature audiences, so let’s see when it will get a clearance here,” she points out.

Having already wrapped up the shoot for Zoya’s film, Kalki reveals that she’s now busy shooting for her next film Shaitan. But apart from that, what’s also keeping Kalki busy is her film script.

Though Kalki has co-scripted several plays in the past, including Skeleton Woman and had also co-scripted the film That Girl…, the actor is now planning to script a film on her own. “I’ve been working on it for some time now, but each time, I get busy with my acting. This time I hope to finish it,” she says, not ready to divulge much about it. Whether the film would be helmed by Anurag is also something that she’ll let her script decide.

“It’s too early to say who’d be the right person to direct it or even act in it. Right now, I’m only focusing on juggling my roles as a writer and actor,” she adds.