Working for over 15 years in the film industry, South Indian actor Kani Kusruti is a powerhouse of talent. The actor is famous for her roles in movies like ‘Kerala Cafe’, ‘Pisaasu’, and ‘Memories of a Machine’. 

Bollywood and South Indian Fim Industry surely are two different entities but they are intertwined in many ways. One being the actors from each side working for both the industries at least once in their career span. However, even after working for a long period, this hasn’t been the case for Kani. She, in fact, has chosen to stay away from Bollywood.

Citing the reason for it, she told Homegrown, “Quite honestly I don’t think I have a place in Bollywood. They don’t really cast dark-skinned women with my kind of features in commercial films, do they? Also, I can’t speak Hindi fluently. So unless I have sufficient time to rehearse for the film, I can’t play a part in Bollywood anyway.”

She added, “To be in Bollywood one requires to actively network, make a professional portfolio, hire an agent – I am not saying these are bad things, I just haven’t made the effort to do them, so that’s one more reason. I usually get cast in independent films through the credit of my previous work.”

The talented actor started her acting tryst with theatre and went on to study it with the indigenous theatre school Adishakti in Pondicherry after which she pursued a two-year course at the L’École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq – a globally celebrated institution of physical theatre in Paris. She then went on to work with some of the greatest thespians and even performed at the mecca of English theatre – Shakespeare’s Globe in London.

She is popularly known for her choice of unconventional characters. This, however, hasn’t been a conscious choice for her. She says, “I never give unconventionality a thought when taking up roles because I feel that if a character is real then like real people he or she will be unconventional in their own intimate space – that space where you let all your quirks loose. Though more than my connection with a role what makes me take up film projects is my connection with the director.“

“My way of approaching cinema is such because in theatre actors still have some autonomy, while in the cinema I personally feel the filmmaker is the main story-teller and the actors a medium to tell the story,” said Kani.

Kani believes that an actor should always be in the quest of learning and from multiple sources. She says, “I still feel that for an actor to truly hone their craft they must expose themselves to multiple schools of learning. If you are going to be a professional actor and just be dependent on one skill you have, even if that’s naturalism, I think that’s an act of pure laziness.”

H/T: Homegrown