 So, Kalki I want to talk about identity. What is identity to you? I mean you have an amazing mix of backgrounds to be here. So tell me your background and your mix and your identity. If I figure it out I'll let you know. Right now I have no idea. As you know I was born in South India. My parents are both French but I grew up all my life in India, lived here all my life. They've been here for 40 years. So basically my skin is white and my heart is brown. Say something in a language you feel comfortable with. Do you ever have situations where somebody says something in Tamil, not knowing you understand? Very, very often. I mean I've had very entertaining conversations happen right in front of me. Two boys commenting on me saying they can be taken as flattering or slightly lewd comments that they'll be making about me. And then at the end of their conversation I'll say something in Tamil and their jaw drops open and they're like oh my God. So yeah that happens quite a lot. So you obviously raised here, went to a boarding school. What were you like as a kid? I mean for an actor we always think of people who are exuberant, excited out there. Were you like the popular chick in school or what were you like when you were growing up? Not at all. I was very, very painfully shy. I grew up in a school which was this British school in South India, English medium school. When I first got there I had a French accent because I was six years old and at home I spoke French. So I used to say things like concomber for cucumber and people used to really make fun of that. So I quickly changed that and became very normal in the way I spoke or whatever. And then my Tamil took a back seat as well because English was like cool and everything. So there were all these things where I think since a very young age trying very hard to just be what everybody else wants me to be. I was always quiet, I was very shy, I never really expressed what I felt and things like that. And I had braces for like five years so I had no chance with most of the boys. And I think the way that I was to protect myself was by being a clown, by making people laugh. So that was my kind of barrier, that was my way of making friends and not really showing people my insecurities or what I was really inside. So from this painfully shy girl to take one of the most daring roles in DVD, I mean that's quite a stretch. So what made you decide you wanted to be an actress? Maybe tell us a little bit about did you have a struggle before you wanted to become an actress or was it easy for you? It was a long struggle. It was a long struggle convincing my mother that I'm not insane. Really from a young age I always was the one place where I could just go and do something and become a character was on stage. So in school we used to have drama productions and suddenly I was somebody else and it was very liberating for me seeing as I don't know who I am myself. And then when I grew up and suddenly I had to become an adult and do something with my life, I don't take myself seriously enough to do something serious. So everything I do I've got to do it with some fun and also really I don't take myself seriously. I'm the first person to laugh at myself and things. So I think this was for me just the first thing that came to mind was something creative, drama. And then I went to university in London, I went to Goldsmiths and I studied drama there. And again I felt like I didn't know where I was, who I was because suddenly I was in this country where everybody thought I was from there. They thought I was from England or from France and yet when I said I'm Indian and my name is Kalki and then they were like, oh you don't look Indian, but you don't sound English, but you don't wear you from. And yeah, I still don't have an answer for that. So I lost my train of thought. Okay, continuing on that what was your first break when you auditioned for that? After I finished my theatre studies in London I came back home and I started doing theatre here. I did a lot of physical theatre, improvisational theatre and I didn't know where I was going but I knew that there was one thing that I was really hungry about and that's telling stories and becoming somebody else. And in that you start to understand somebody else I think and that's what I loved about acting. Acting is therapy, it's like you go into somebody else's mind, you discover things and then you feel a lot less distant from people because who cares if they don't think the same way or they behave strangely or they might have so many different things which at first you're so easy to judge somebody just by looking at them. And I think when you start to take acting seriously you really sort of break that down and see the humanity and the people behind that. So that's what I loved. And then I came back to India, I did lots of theatre and I went and did this audition for Dave Dee. The audition for Dave Dee was funny because I got a call and they said, yeah there's an audition for this, this, this. And I saw the script and it was in Hindi. So I said I'm really sorry you have the wrong person, my Hindi is really bad, I don't think I can do this. So they gave me the script in English and I did it and ten minutes after I left their office I got a call from Anurag, Anurag the director obviously you know him. And what they told me about the audition was that it's the role of a prostitute and everybody who came for the audition either did two things. One they judged the script and said oh this is dirty and it's like pornographic, I mean how can you make a film like this? Or they would think that playing a prostitute like there was a phone sex scene. So they would play it in a very overly sexual way like oh my god I'm loving this. This is so wonderful and actually somebody who's doing that on a daily basis who's a prostitute is not going to be, she's probably going to be doing other things. This is like a call center call. She's actually, so she'll be like yeah baby it's wonderful, it's lovely and she'll be like on her computer or doing other stuff. And that for me was, that's what I interpreted as and that's what got me the role. So how do you prepare for a role? I mean I think I'm just so over excited when I get a role that I do too much work. I believe in doing too much work. I believe in just going out researching and digging and annoying my director and calling them up every day and saying what else can I do? Tell me, tell me should I watch some movies, read some books, do that. I do my research and everything and I have way too much information which I'll never be able to use and then I let it all go when I come on set. I feel you have to be ultra prepared and then wait for the surprise. Just let things surprise you. Let the other actor surprise you or let your director tell you no I don't want you to do it in this way, I want you to do it that way. So everybody knows you as an actress. Tell me your other avatars as a writer. What are the other things that you're equally excited about? I like sitting cross-legged. I like to write but no you know what I don't know if I like to write. I'm a very reluctant writer. I've written all my life but I've noticed that I only write when I'm depressed or unemployed. So I don't know if I really like to write. Have you been writing anything lately? I've been writing something few months back. Which one is it? Both. Or bored maybe. That was the other one. But yeah I just wrote a play recently. But yeah I don't know I think it comes out of a need to expel stuff and get stuff out rather than you know it's a very personal thing my writing. It's not really something that I do for somebody else. Of course you know when you put a play up you put it up for an audience but when I write it I really just get it out of my system. So do you have anything you want to read or tell us about your play? Yeah you unfortunately told me to print out something. Yes I would like you to read your poem. I couldn't see it in your hands. I don't know if you call it a poem because technically I think it's zero but it's like a rant you know it's just something that I wrote and yeah I'll just go for it. We are the people of the world, the collective, the masses, the capitalist communal fascists. We are you. We're ready for action, for tragedy, atrocity, hostility and fashion. We are the impersonal. We love great films but we don't live great lives. We create drama but shy away from real life. We are an army of sheep. We fight for causes and stand up in the streets. We fight for clauses, throw stones and bombs and then build tombs with our feet. We are an amorphous blob. We are a greedy fat man standing in a queue, unnoticed and nobody a slob. We are nameless so that we can be shameless. We are the mob, the headless god. We are blameless. Debates, chat shows, votes of the public and no opinion of our own. Online indulgence, typing thoughts, borrowed from a borrower, selected, educated and thoroughly plagiarized thoughts, dues and odds, typed, copied, copied, pasted, pasted, pasted and unprinted pages of a virtual web denser than the dark ages. Thoughts that we copy, thoughts we copyright, thoughts we own and thoughts we're not thinking alone. Everybody writes about it, thinks about it, talks about it but if somebody is actually doing it, nobody gives a shit. The we, the fancy lives of the we. We make news out of lipstick, travel and choice of ice cream. All frivolous news that comes out of our pockets and leaves as nations starving. We the people, we the classes, we the businessman, we the poor man, we the ladies who pout with the fat off their asses. Our self-worth rests on the opinion of others, on magazine covers, on how many more overs, on frequent lovers, we the masses, the people, the system, the supporters, the obedient pairs of taxes. We are to blame, we should be ashamed. We have neighbors, we have money, we have poverty, we have each other. We are the problem, we are the solution. We could know who we are, we could go far, if we just stop being so we. So, my last question to you Kalki, you are the future young, you know you're part of the INC Fellows program. As you look at the future, as a young person, what would you like to do and what do you wish happen? I think it's too early for me to say what I wish to happen. I don't wish anything to happen. I'm terrible at planning things and I don't want to predict anything. I feel that everybody, you know, actually is so afraid of facing themselves most of the time. You know, we are always being people for somebody else and this is my, me personally, I'm talking about as well. I've always been somebody for somebody, you know, like played somebody for other people. And I think acting and finding something that you're passionate about is a way to really be truthful with yourself and be honest with yourself. And I don't really have any, you know, sort of way of living a philosophy of life except that, you know, there's a Japanese saying that I like which says yesterday worse than today, tomorrow better than today or something like that. But basically, you know, there's another day coming and you just need to keep going and you need to get better. And I think that's it. You know, we're too busy judging other people or, you know, judging how we should be with other people rather than just concentrating on, you know, what's in front of us. Take a step, move forward, do something. Great. Thank you for being here, Kalki.