Back in Business

Her character of Tanya Sharma in Shaitaan, according to actress Kirti Kulhari, was the one that garnered the most sympathy from the viewers. “While critics commented that she was the most mature of the lot, people sympathised with my character,” she laughs. Kulhari, who has been off the radar since the success of Shaitaan is back on the silver screen after a year-and-half-long hiatus; this time with four releases lined up for the first half of the year- the first being Rise of the Zombies (ROTZ), with musician Luke Kenny.

Kulhari was in the city on Sunday at the Symbiosis Institute of International Business to promote the film along with Kenny. Kulhari, who made a conscious effort to lay low post Shaitaan says, “Offers did come but I chose these four scripts. In fact Rise of... was about 80 per cent completed when Shaitaan released. The other three films, Jal, Sooper Se Ooper and Single Chal Riya Hun happened over the last year and all of them will hopefully release in the first half of this year.”

Kulhari, who has been a theatre actor and worked in both music videos and commercials, says that the master plan was always to get to films and do quality acting work. “Television serials are like nine to five jobs, there isn't much innovation. With films, it's like, play a character, fall in love with it and move on.” ROTZ, which is being billed as the country's first zombie origins movie has Kenny playing a 'good-looking, but very realistic zombie', in her words.

Kulhari says that the long stay away from the silver screen was helpful and gave her a chance to get under the skin of every character. “Be it the very independent woman in ROTZ, the village belle in Jal or the street smart girl in Sooper Se Ooper, there are different dimensions to each character. At the end of the day, I'd love to surprise people by saying 'Arre I was that same villager in Jal as I was the modern girl in ROTZ'. That's the fun,” she grins.