When 'Blackmail' goes wrong: Actors Kirti Kulhari, Arunoday Singh go candid on dark comedy

In the dark comedy movie which is set to release on April 6, Kirti will be seen having an extramarital affair with Ranjeet, played by Arunoday Singh.
A poster of the movie
A poster of the movie

Kirti Kulhari who shot to fame with films such as Pink and Indu Sarkar is in news again for her next Blackmail, a dark comedy with Irrfan Khan playing her husband. In the movie set to release on April 6, Kirti will be seen having an extramarital affair with Ranjeet, played by Arunoday Singh.

Talking about her role Kirti says, “I play Reena, a regular homemaker who’s married to Dev, played by Irrfan. My character is someone who’s very emotional to the extent of being a fool sometimes. Reena is very impulsive and she’s in a space where she is kind of lost. Her relationship with Irrfan is not the best.”

Spotted last in Mohenjo Daro, Arunoday who has played with almost all genres, will this time be seen in an altogether different avatar. “My character Ranjeet is very arrogant but very stupid. It was fun doing this role. Ranjeet is very confident but also very silly at the same time,” says this B-Town guy, who is known for his work in Jism 2.

Arunoday says, “In the movie, I have an affair with Irrfan’s wife and he finds out and decides to blackmail me. What I do in response is from where all the ‘locha’ begins. I don’t do the typical thing when someone blackmails me, I start getting involved and things go wrong.” The film also has Divya Dutta as a rich woman essaying the role of Arunoday’s wife. “We have a very interesting and unique chemistry. My character doesn’t want to work and so he marries her,” says Arunoday. “She is always disappointed with me. She thinks I am a loser but I don’t care about it as long as I am getting the money.”

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Drawing a comparison between his earlier films and this one, he says, “This one is a dark comedy and it’s different because it’s slightly twisted. Everyone likes gossiping about other people’s problems and dark comedies feed on that. You find it funny because somebody else is in trouble.”

Co-star Kirti on the other hand feels at ease with the genre and says, “Doing a comedy is of course much easier. But it’s not the regular Bollywood comedy that we see. It’s a dark comedy which is a very difficult genre.”

She believes that every film needs a different kind of effort and mannerisms to play the character. Her last two films brought her a lot of fame. “Both Indu Sarkar and Pink were films of different genres and required a certain intensity, involvement and investment as an actor and as a person.” Meanwhile, sharing his thoughts on whether he thinks that the audience has acquired a taste for dark comedies, Arunoday says that it depends on how the film has been done. He believes that dark comedy is one of the most untouched subjects in the industry today.

Irrfan, who is playing a strong character in the film, seems to have left an impression on his co-stars.  

Kirti feels that Irrfan has a certain inherent work style and a sense of humour that gets reflected in every film he does. “It was lovely working with him. I had this image that he’s a very chilled out person as well as an actor. And he totally lived up to that image. He’s a very grounded and simple person. And, what he brings through his craft is what we have witnessed over the years.”

Kirti was also super-impressed with Irrfan’s technical soundness. “He is not just creatively aware of things, he has a technical know-how of every department. His understanding of various departments in terms of camera, light and sound is amazing. And I think that’s one thing that I would really want to develop.”

On the work front, Kirti will soon be making her debut on the digital platform with a web series that is expected to release in September. Arunoday did not seem very keen on revealing about his upcoming projects.

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