When seemingly every starlet's initiation into the glitzy world of Bollywood is kick-started by emulating everyone who has gone before, and adapting to Bollywood conventions without questioning them, it's rare that a woman comes along and turns the game around by effortlessly breaking the rules and creating new ones.
But that's exactly what Kalki Koechlin has done, taking on unconventional roles in both reel and real life and changing the rules of the game plan set by her predecessors, to create a niche for herself.
Unconvetional beauty
From her unusual looks - the pale, pencil-thin figure, pouty lips and buck teeth - to her peculiar movie sensibilities, Kalki was a blatant Bollywood misfit from the off, but one who capitalised on her uniqueness rather than denied it.
Despite not being able to speak Hindi, Kalki chose film-makers who allowed her to improvise and learn on the job; and today, despite a strong anglicised accent, she's almost unrecognisable from the newcomer who made a spirited splash in Anurag Kashyap's Dev D.
Brought up in the Indian costal town of Pondicherry, and after completing drama and theatre studies at Goldsmith University in London, Kalki worked with the Theatre of Relativity for two years, later moving to Mumbai, like many aspiring models, with a dream of becoming an actress. And just before she bagged the role of Chandramukhi (Chanda) in Dev D, Kalki was modelling for television commercials. Although the role was untraditional, with the actress admitting, "My role in the film has a controversial streak to it, but I still don't know what would have been an ideal role to debut with," she was honoured with the Filmfare Best Supporting Actress award in 2010.
Following up with an equally edgy part in Binoy Nambiar's spirited take on teenage angst in Shaitan and the little known Emotional Atyachar, before she could be typecast, Kalki switched things up with the fun mainstream flick, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. "I don't want to be labelled or trapped," she insists. "My job is to change and adapt to everything that comes. And it's exciting that I'm doing something different every time."
Hooked, cooked and booked
In a defiant act against an industry that's sceptical about casting married leading ladies, four-film-old Kalki married her man and mentor, Anurag, in April this year, gushing, "I'm still mesmerised by this boy. We're very different... but we keep each other on the edge."
And following on from their successful Dev D collaboration, the husband-and-wife team will reconnect in the upcoming That Girl in Yellow Boots, which also marks this ambitious girl's screenwriting debut.
