Actress of the year, the incredible Kani Kusruti, who can play anything, discusses the impact Of All That We Imagine As Light and more in this special interview with Subhash K Jha.
Only a myopic kalaa-blind art-myopic industry would cast the powerhouse performer Kani Kusruti as an assistant to Huma Qureshi in Maharani. Indeed, the sinfully accomplished Kani has proved herself the real Maharani of movie acting with All We Imagine As Light. Kani is now being feted across the world. But she is not getting carried away. The Malayali powerhouse started with a bit part in 2003 as a bus passenger speaks of her incredible journey so far.
In 2024 Kani had to as many as three releases. She says it was a mere co-incidence. “I actually did Girls Will Be Girls first, in 2022. October, November is when we shot for it. And All We Imagine Has Light happened in 2023. But, both films came out in 2024. That is just a coincidence that can happen anytime for actors. Sometimes some films just came out together. We shot the films in different years. Just because in a certain year, a bunch of films come out doesn’t mean that that was the prolific year for the actor. It depends on which year I probably worked more. I didn’t work last year. In fact, this year, I worked the least. I was mostly traveling iin 2024. During 2022, 2021 and 2022, I think as an actor, I worked in a lot of things. I was shooting for Killer Soup, I was shooting for Poacher, I was shooting for Maharani, then Girls Will Be Girls. Many, many things was happening in those years. So, those were the years I think I was more prolific. In Mura, I just have a few scenes. I like to play all kinds of characters. So, I was just happy to play with Hridhu Haroon again because he is also in All We Imagine As Light and then to play as his sister in another film was fun, even though it’s just two, three scenes. I don’t particularly believe that my career has changed in the year 2024 because I don’t believe that journey of a film is how one’s career changes; I don’t define my career that way anyway. When I go to act in a film or when I take up a project, I am never thinking of the journey. So, of course, I didn’t think about where All We Imagine As Light would take me.”
Kani is as surprised by the global success of All We Imagine As Light as the rest of the world. “I am also discovering it while it’s happening. I think the story resonates universally and Payal Kapadia’s language resonates universally. It is poetic and subtle and it probably resonates with people’s taste, I would say, and I think the subject and story can happen to anyone and anywhere, though it is a regional film in a way, region-specific, but also I generally believe that anything you speak so region-specific completely translates globally. So, it could be that.”
Interestingly Payal Kapadia came to Kani with another character in All We Imagine As Light. “Payal did not come to me asking me to play Prabha. In fact, she reached out to me eight or nine years ago to play Anu (played by Divya Prabha) because she watched a film of mine, a short film called Memories of a Machine and she wanted to cast me for the part of Anu. Even at that time Payal was only developing the script and she sent me those drafts and she said she’s keeping me in her mind to play Anu. So, she developed the character thinking of that, but it took many, many years for the film to finally happen. By that time I crossed that age (to play Anu). So, then Payal came to me and said, we have talked about you playing Anu multiple times and working together. So, finally it’s going to happen now. So, I told her that I won’t be able to even imagine me playing that younger part anymore. So, she was like, would you like to audition for this other part? Then I was like, okay, then let me audition for this other part. That’s how I ended up playing Prabha. She is lonely. She has a partner, but it’s almost like she doesn’t have him, which is a case of a lot of Indian women and Indian men. So, I don’t know if she’s clinging to hope also. She’s quite probably hopeless, but I think she finally manages to move on and she finds her own closure to move on with life. That is how I see Prabha.”
And now at year end Kani gives another outstanding performance in Shuchi Talati’s Girls will Be Girls. The actress who makes the ordinary look extraordinary sees Talati as completely different entities. “Both the directors, Shuchi and Payal are very different directors, their process is very different. When I read All We Imagine As Light, I kind of immediately understood the character and the story and what Prabha is and all. But when I read Girls Will Be Girls, I didn’t understand my character Anila that quickly. I talked to Shuchi, my director, then when my co-actor Preeti Panigrahi came on board, when she played Mira is when I started understanding Anila. So, it took my time to slowly kind of understand Anila. So, for me, it was more interesting to play Anila because I haven’t been given a character like that.”
Kani wants to take it easy in 2035. “Right now, I just want to be home and I hope I can be home for some time and that’s what I would love, just some time for myself. There are one or two stories that I am fascinated about. Let’s see how it’s going. I don’t know how 2025 going to turn out. I only care about the story and whether I feel like I want to be part of the story. I’m not so much into my character and everything. I’m very much into what the story is. That’s what fascinates me and in an ideal place, but sometimes we don’t get the ideal place. So, sometimes it can be, oh, I like my character. Sometimes it can be like, oh, I think I would like to work with this director. So, it can be different, different reasons. But in an ideal, ideal, most ideal place for me as an artist would be, I want to be part of this particular story and this particular way of storytelling. That would be the best reason for choosing to work with someone.”
