Mumbai: Kiara Advani has said that some people might have found Kabir Singh (2019) unpalatable and toxic, but at least it drew attention to unhealthy relationships. In an interview with Femina, Kiara opened up about her character Preeti from Kabir Singh, ‘possibly her most infamous role ever’. The actor spoke about not seeing things as black and white, or judging the characters she plays.
She said, “I have never played a character I didn’t like. If I don’t like my character, I better not be doing the movie. We need to accept that there are all sorts of people. We can’t cancel everyone.” Kiara added, “If Kabir Singh didn’t start a conversation, that would be problematic. But it did, and that’s a great thing. What we can do is grow from it. That is what matters.”
Kabir Singh was a remake of Vijay Devarakonda’s Telugu film Arjun Reddy, which was also directed by Sandeep Reddy Vanga. Kabir Singh was a box office hit, but it had received mixed to negative reviews from audience and critics for the way it showed the relationship between Shahid Kapoor’s Kabir and Kiara’s Preeti.
This is not the first time that Kiara Advani spoke about Kabir Singh and the criticism that came her way after the release. The actor had defended her character Preeti from the film in a 2022 interview with Bollywood Hungama.
She had said, “There was a lot of love coming in after the release. But there was this one side that was questioning a lot of important things about the film as well. My opinion has always been very clear and for me deep down it’s a love story and the thing about love is that it’s the only thing that will allow you to forgive certain behaviours in life. Relationships are very complex and it’s very easy for a third person to say ‘get out of that relationship’. But for two people in that relationship, it is another complication altogether.”
Talking about how people focussed on just one part of the movie, the actor had further said, “As for Preeti, after that slap in the movie she leaves him (Kabir) you don’t see that, you forget about that. The fact that she went back to him, had a few sections of people saying ‘oh she shouldn’t have gone back’. But I feel that this is what made heart at the end and that’s what love does. Although at the end of the day it’s just a film and just a story.”