Kiara Advani feels Kabir Singh criticism was unfair, reveals what could have been done differently to tone down backlash

Kiara Advani wonders if changing one particular aspect about Kabir Singh would have helped tone down the backlash it received.

Actor Kiara Advani had a very successful 2019, with back-to-back hits Kabir Singh and Good Newwz. But even with several new projects lined up for 2020, the actor is finding it hard to escape from under the shadow of the controversial Kabir Singh, which starred Shahid Kapoor in the title role.

Kiara Advani and Shahid Kapoor in Kabir Singh.

In an interview to journalist Anupama Chopra, she was asked if she’d approach things differently, if presented with a film like Kabir Singh now, when she has more power to choose her scripts. “Both Shahid and myself were well aware of the film (we were getting into), and everything that we knew would come with it,” Kiara said, since they could draw from the original Telugu movie Arjun Reddy, on which Kabir Singh was based.

The actor said that no character she has ever played has been like her at all. “And Kabir Singh was probably the hardest of them all, because anyone who knows me knows my thinking,” she said, adding that the film “was so real, and so flawed.”

 

Kabir Singh, directed by Sandeep Reddy Vanga, overcame negative reviews and allegations of being misogynistic to make over Rs 350 crore worldwide.

She continued, “So much was made out of it, and so much backlash happened, it was so exhausting...” she said, adding that “anything I do today, Preeti does not leave me.” She said that as an artiste, “the director had his perspective, we had ours, and the audience theirs and that was divided, but I feel you can’t disrespect the intelligence of the audience.”

Kiara said that “one some level, there were things that were raised in the debate (around the film) that were actually healthy... Somewhere we get really hard on certain films, and I don’t know if it was that fair to be that hard on this film.”

She did, however, add that perhaps because the story was told from Kabir’s point-of-view, it might not have presented a balanced picture. “Sometimes I wonder had you seen Preeti’s life when she goes missing in the second half, maybe there would have been some sort of justification... Maybe had the audience seen what she went through when the separation happened would they have been so hard?...”

Kiara now has Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2, Indu Ki Jawaani, Sherhaah and Laxxmi Bomb in the pipeline.

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