RADA-trained Koel Purie is a first-class actress that you may not have heard of. She prefers to choose her own films and likes to choose difficult subjects to play – an abused daughter in Everyone Says I’m Fine, a swapped wife in Mixed Doubles, a burnt-out TV writer in White Noise. Doesn’t she like Bollywood movies? “I have done full-on masala films too. But somehow, a Mixed Doubles works better than a Life Mein Kabhie Kabhie for me,” she says. “I’m lucky. I can choose to do the kind of films I want.”
As an actress, does she worry that her name isn’t well known as yet? “When I’m doing these films, I’m aware that they’re niche films and will never equal the mass appeal of a proper Bollywood film,” she explains. “But that’s not why I’ve chosen to do films. I do films I relate to. Audience adulation is important and I would love to have that, but that’s not what makes me an actor.”
Koel will soon be seen in Rock On!! opposite Kurab Pohli. “Rock On was a brilliant experience,” she says. “I am playing a ‘been there, done that’ mentor to the younger character of Prachi Shah. I sang, I even pinched a guy’s bottom in the film!”
She was recently in Delhi, her hometown, for the Osian Film Festival. How does she like Delhi now? “I was done with Delhi for a while,” she says. “I started feeling claustrophobic here. I needed to see and experience what else was out there and so I based myself in Mumbai and worked in London. But now I think I have come full circle and have fallen in love with Delhi all over again. There is something about this city… it is such a huge metropolis and yet still has huge open spaces. And the bond that I have with Delhi – I doubt if I can have the same bond with any other city. I feel more like a grounded person in Delhi.”
