Kirti Kulhari opened up about how she felt ‘sidelined’ during the promotions of her film ‘Pink’, saying that Taapsee Pannu had become ‘the Pink girl’. The actress said she had a meltdown because of that.
In conversation with ‘Fever FM’, Kirti talked about the 2016 Shoojit Sircar directorial, which also starred Amitabh Bachchan, Taapsee, Andrea Tariang and Angad Bedi. “When ‘Pink’ happened, for me, there was never a thought of ‘Who is big or small’ in terms of their status in the industry. I was like it is a story of three girls. That’s how I saw it. I came from a space where I believed ‘We are all actors. We are all together’. But ‘Pink’ made me feel a lot of ‘big star-small star’ treatment. The people around you make you feel that way.”
Kirti said that she was first taken aback by the trailer as it contained only Big B and Taapsee but Shoojit assured her the film would be different. But post-release, the narrative changed, “I saw the trailer was mainly filled with Taapsee and Amitabh Bachchan. That was the first ‘jhatka’ for me because I know what I have done in the film. Shoojit was like, ‘Don’t worry about it. Let the film come out’. I never do PR. I believe my work will be eventually seen. However, during the promotions, the PR machinery happened to Taapsee because she came after Amitabh Bachchan (in terms of hierarchy) in that film. Eventually, it became her film and she became the ‘Pink’ girl in terms of positioning and I saw that happening in front of me. This was the first shocker for me because I couldn’t understand this.”
When asked if it changed her and Taapsee’s equation, Kirti said that Taapsee ‘didn’t notice’ and remained nice to her but that she herself took the ‘PR game a little personally’.