By Hindustan Times
Days before the discharge of his political thriller Shanghai, filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee is angry and irritated. Reports claiming that he has presented his leading lady, Kalki Koechlin, in an unsightly avatar within the film have disturbed the director.
“I don’t know whose head to bash or who to sue for such false reports. Someone has put this wrong piece of data online that I NEEDED Kalki to appear bad in Shanghai,” he rants, adding, “Someone is making an attempt to prove that i'm stupid, as just a stupid guy would wish his beautiful leading lady to appear ugly.”
Dibakar does admit, however, that Kalki’s look was dramatically changed. “I like reinventing looks and making my actors look different than their normal selves,” he says.
He insists that since his leading lady looked glamorous and westernised in films like Dev D (2009) and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011), he desired to capture her vulnerability in Shanghai, so as to add to her beauty.
“Her character, Shalini, is a lady just out of school who's going through a traumatic period in her life. She is emotional, and it shows in her eyes,” the director explains, adding, “Kalki has very elegant hair. But I WISHED to offer her a wild and slightly messed-up hairstyle to turn that Shalini doesn’t care how she looks. She doesn’t wear make-up and only dresses in sporty clothes.”
Having captured her in extreme close-ups within the film, Dibakar claims, “I think she is calling her best in comparison to her earlier films because no person has used her vulnerability before. She is heart-achingly beautiful.”
The film, slated to release on 8 June, also stars Emraan Hashmi, Abhay Deol and Prosenjit Chatterjee. It's in accordance with the unconventional Z by Vassilis Vassilikos.
