Meet Kalki Koechlin

Brut India

How do you pronounce Kalki Koechlin? What does she sound like in Tamil? Why did she get trolled for cutting her hair? The Bollywood actress answers your questions on Brut India.

Transcript

00:00There's Cochlin, there's Coechlin, the real pronunciation is Kekla.

00:27When I was a little girl, I used to play with my friends and we used to actually stare at

00:31foreigners and be like, well, look at the foreigner who's passing by.

00:34So that's how much I really thought I was Indian.

00:37I've grown up being stared at as a foreigner, I've grown up with people sort of talking

00:43to me as though I wasn't from the place, and that's something I was always frustrated with

00:50because I felt like I was Indian and I didn't have an awareness that I wasn't for a very

00:56long time.

01:10I hope I still have a career in Bollywood with my short hair.

01:14There is a model of beauty that's quite conventional.

01:17It's not unique to Bollywood, it's in Hollywood, it's in different parts of the world in different

01:22ways, but there is an idea of what feminine should be.

01:27I didn't think about my haircut much.

01:31I didn't have any commitments at work, so I was like, oh, I can chop off my hair.

01:36It felt great and I really enjoy it.

01:38Beauty trends need to grow and change, and I think that the only way to do it is to start

01:44doing it yourself, you know?

01:47I once had a producer tell me that I need to get Botox for my laughter lines, so I decided

01:58I'm going to stop smiling so much and be very serious from now on.

02:03You know, it's casual, small comments.

02:05It's never like, you know, some big statement.

02:08If you just change the way, maybe the way you dress, you know, you might get more work.

02:14It's really, like, just said in a very casual way, so you also feel like, oh, why am I making

02:19such a big deal about this?

02:21But that, for me, is the worst kind of sexism, casual sexism, where it's just, ah, come on,

02:26don't take it so seriously, a little slap on the back, you know?

02:30And that casualness sort of builds up and creates a certain frustration and anger, which

02:36is inexplicable later.

02:37It's so ingrained in our culture, the way we bring up children and how differently we

02:46bring up boys and girls.

02:48And I think that the basis for that needs to start in the next generation.

02:53It's very hard for this generation to change completely the way that they were brought

02:57up.

02:58But we do have a chance to change our generation, the coming generation of children.

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