May 16, 2026 10:00pm IST
Kalki Koechlin: ‘I Attract certain Kinds of Scripts’
Kalki Koechlin has made her French-language debut in John M. Keller’s comedy-drama “Her Song,” which also stars Eléa Clair and Zach Grenier, among others. Oscar winner James Ivory (“Call Me By Your Name”) is executive producer along with Eric Gruendemann.
Set in a quaint French village, “Her Song” sees Olivia (Koechlin), a Franco-American novelist, return to her family’s ancestral home to write the story of her grandmother, who fled to the same village from Paris during World War II. She meets Madeline (Clair), a talented and spirited French woman, who inspires her to write her story. Eventually, fact mixes with fiction. A genre-agnostic film, “Her Song” is a light-hearted representation mixed with realism, where every character has a clear growth and career arc. “One of the first things I said to John was that there are no bad guys in your script. Everyone is flawed and everyone is interesting. That’s rare to see in a script. It’s nice to have a script that’s about human beings,” says Koechlin to Variety India.
Expressing nervousness about her American accent for the film, Koechlin says, “We initially tried to give Olivia a stereotypical, heavy American accent on the French. But because there was so much dialogue – John (the director) writes big chunks of dialogue – we eventually decided that Olivia has to be a person who speaks French well, but has a slight accent, rather than be someone who is struggling to speak French.” To prepare, Koechlin took notes from the accent of actor Julia Roberts and from Keller, but the majority of her training happened once she reached the French Pyrenees. “Her Song”’s executive producer, Eric Gruendemann, unknowingly became Kalki’s greatest influence in picking up an American accent. “He was my trainer without even realizing it. The lived experience is so much better,” notes Koechlin, reminiscing about her time on the film’s set.
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Olivia is a flawed, multi-layered character, much like the complex characters she typically plays in Bollywood. The actor drew upon her internal sense of displacement to play her character, who appears at home in France, yet is seemingly disconnected from her history. Adds Koechlin, “I have grown up with internal displacement – not knowing where I really come from. I have always felt that I am from India, from the South, but people didn’t really see me that way because of my white skin. I had to explain myself over and over again. Then, going to a British school in India and speaking Tamil and French as my first languages, I had to reinvent myself again. My friends used to tease me as I used to use French words to describe things, like ‘concombre’ instead of cucumber. I had to quickly learn to talk ‘properly’.”
Talent sans borders
While Koechlin doesn’t draw upon her own family heritage to play Olivia in “Her Song” (Kalki’s parents had moved to India from Angers in France), she is now revisiting her ‘past’ and her grandparents’ and parents’ journey. The birth of her daughter has accelerated this. “I feel life often imitates art. This script came into my life with similar themes. This often happens in life: I am surrounded by thoughts and then attract certain kinds of scripts that way,” she said.
This fluidity is leading Kalki towards different mediums and languages and she is expanding her sphere as an actor. She has already acted in two Tamil films and wants to act in more French and English-language films. “We live in a world where borders exist but they don’t really make sense. We are all so mixed in terms of our origins and people have migrated in every direction. It’s normal that actors should be allowed to tap into all aspects they have a connection with. I can see Indian-origin actors growing up in America and acting in films there, and similarly actors from here (India) working abroad. That makes sense to me and I don’t see why we don’t do more of that. If the actor has the skill and knowledge for it, they should be given that opportunity,” she added.
Role recalls
Would she consider playing another character if her popular films like “Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani” or “Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara” were remade today, Koechlin paused to reflect. “At this point in my life, not really,” she added. Koechlin addresses being stereotyped in Bollywood, particularly in negative characters or character roles. After “Dev.D.,” she was primarily offered prostitute roles and after “Margarita with a Straw,” she was being offered disabled character roles. This is in contrast to what Kalki wanted in her younger days. “When I was young, I wanted to play the main character and be the heroine”, she said.
As she looks back at her career trajectory, she is glad she pushed herself in terms of creativity. “If I was the heroine in Bollywood, I wouldn’t have time to do anything else. So I am grateful for that journey now. It wasn’t easy being the ‘home-breaker’ character, or the one who is the wet mop who has come to spoil the party”, she said, referencing two of her iconic characters – Faiza from “Made in Heaven” and Natasha from “Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara.”
She likes playing such challenging characters and is now addicted to such characters (and challenges). She says that she tries to find the human aspect in every role. “I have had so many people walk up to me and say, ‘oh, you play a bitch so well!’. After ‘Made in Heaven,’ people came up to me and said, ‘I hate you so much,’ to which I had to respond, ‘I hope you hate my character, not me!’. Audiences have strong reactions to these characters, which can sometimes be flustering or disturbing, but it also means the character was convincing and evoked emotions in people. None of us are fully good or bad. I always try to find the vulnerability in those characters and I am glad my positive characters like Aditi (from ‘Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani’) resonate with people. I jump at the opportunity to play happy characters,” she laughs.
Breaking from norms
Koechlin wants her daughter to live life beyond the virtual realm and wants to live by example. “There’s a book called “Anxious Generation” by Jonathan Haidt. It’s all about social media and the book attacks the tech companies for what it has done to our children. These are important questions in my life right now. Like when will I give my daughter the phone? Kids don’t listen to what you say. They watch what you do. And that’s very important for me to live by that example and not be owned by social media,” she added.
She laments about the impact of patriarchy on both men and women. There is pressure on women to look beautiful and fair all the time and men to look masculine, which comes with the pressure of building abs. “Men are victims of patriarchy as much as women,” she says. She also points out that aging is another issue for actors, particularly women. “The tendency for roles for older women is to navigate towards ‘aunty’ roles or mother roles, which are not nuanced. Which is why I keep doing other kinds of projects like ‘Her Song.’”
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