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Koel Purie, daughter of media baron Aroon Purie marked her debut in Rahul Bose's directorial debut Everybody Says I'm Fine. She played an abused teenager and lent her role the required sensitivity. Now, she acts opposite Rahul, this time though in Vinta Nanda's first film, White Noise. Excerpts from the conversation we had with Koel who is juggling commercial cinema with international projects.
What's your character in White Noise all about?
I play this young, successful, attractive scriptwriter of this hugely popular soap on television. I am successful but my personal life is in a terrible mess. An alcoholic, I am in love with a married man.
The stuff that I write is something unlike my sensibility. It's not really what I am or believe in, yet it is successful, it works for the audience. She has this huge emotional journey to make. Every day is a battle to survive. She's destructive and I don't really agree with the way she goes about her life, she goes about solving her problems.
The film by chance came to you…
Yes, Tabu was supposed to do it and when I was asked to meet Vinta about this role, I really wondered how I'd fit in. Normally, I like to get into my role prepared, I like to research my character, decide beforehand how I want to play it. But in case of White Noise, I just had to jump in.
Vinta helped me in understanding that character which is borrowed in parts from her own life and the people she knows. It's a great role, the script is very good and I think I'm fortunate to be playing it at the beginning of my career, you know what I mean!
But don't you think you are too young to play this woman who seems to have gone through life so much, isn't she very complex to portray?
(Smiles) Yes I think initially even I wondered if I would do justice to her character. But again, these days television is getting younger by the day, you have these really out of college young people making decisions, writing scripts and acting on the small screen, so in that sense my character is not too out of place as since they get into at it a young age, they naturally face problems young.
Which other films have you worked in?
I have just completed this English film called American Daylight, which is produced by Bobby Bedi. It's about a call center operator, about me. It's a romantic thriller about this girl who falls in love with a multi- billionaire music producer who she's only spoken to on phone but never met. The film's a great statement on this whole call center revolution that has happened. While many look at a solution to their unemployment it's still a very warped place to work in, where you are working crazy hours and you hardly get to see daylight! That role has great emotional depth and it was truly a mind-boggling experience.
Then there is this film called Dirty War, which I am shooting for next for BBC. I play a forensic expert who is called in amidst terrorist attacks in central London and how she stops from the second bomb going off! It's an interesting character as she's also a practicing Muslim.
What about Hindi films?
Well my career took off in English films and it's all about getting the right role, the right script, I want to work in all languages, why just Hindi?
Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai
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