In BW the hero leads the script: Kalki Koechlin

Kalki Koechlin opens up about gender-based stereotypes, the wage gap in the Hindi film industry and why awards don't matter to her.

With her unconventional looks, choice of roles and rare candour, Kalki Koechlin's stock in Bollywood as a nonconformist has steadily risen over the years. Last month, she appeared in The Printing Machine, a fiveminute video in which she takes a swipe at the media and its portrayal of atrocities against women with a self-written poem. And before Deepika Padukone's efforts to empower Indian women with "My Choice" backfired, Kalki created quite the stir with her monologue on rape with a video titled It's Your Fault in 2013.

She's free-spirited and proud of it. "Going to London at 18 to study drama and theatre made me grow up really fast. I had to find a job, pay my bills and handle my new-found freedom. Being independent in my choices is important to me," she insists, adding that she'd always wanted to become an actor and that it "was never an aspiration to become a heroine."

There's the wage gap debate that no one's talking about on home ground even though it has been raging on in Hollywood ever since Boyhood actress Patricia Arquette brought it up in her acceptance speech at the Oscars last year. "Actors get paid more because it's a maledominated industry. The hero leads the script. I definitely feel that actresses deserve equal pay but the truth is it's a slow process. We'll need more actresses to come out and lead the script, like Deepika did in Piku. That said, I don't compare myself with other roles or actors, I'm here to do my job well," the 32 year old asserts.

What about more author-backed roles for actresses? Kalki laments the fact that she often finds herself turning down almost 70 per cent of the projects that come her way. "Our film industry desperately needs more writers and better scripts, and even the good ones don't get their due credit. We need better and stronger roles for female actors," she adds.

She's known for portraying strong, spirited characters. Her last screen outing, Margarita, with a Straw, garnered rave reviews. Does the fear of being typecast bother her? What about when her films are ignored at award shows? "I don't work for awards; they're just an icing on the cake. I believe it's up to us to break our own stereotypes. Next up, I start shooting for Konkona Sen Sharma's directorial debut, A Death In the Gunj, which is set in the 1970s. I play a strong writer in the film. On the other hand, I have Jia aur Jia, which will have me singing, dancing and having fun," she signs off.