Koel Purie on Suhana Khan, Agastya Nanda, Khushi Kapoor: 'They are unabashedly ambitious'

Actor-show host-producer-author Koel Purie has opened up on how it was working with star kids - Suhana Khan, Agastya Nanda, and Khushi Kapoor on Zoya Akhtar's upcoming film The Archies. In an exclusive interview with Hindustan Times, Koel talked about her first book--Clearly Invisible In Paris--as well as her next big project, The Archies. She plays Alice Cooper in Zoya Akhtar's film. (Also read: Kareena, Shweta Bachchan react to Suhana and Agastya's new The Archies posters)

Koel made her debut in Hindi films with Rahul Bose's Everybody Says I'm Fine, back in 2001. Twenty years later, she will be seen in one of the most anticipated movies for young audiences of Bollywood. She will be seen as Alice Cooper in Zoya Akhtar's onscreen adaptation of the famous comics. Khushi is reportedly playing Bettie Cooper, Koel's onscreen daughter. In this interview, she opened up on her new book, her own film career, and the experience of working with star kids. She was speaking on the sidelines of her book launch that was held at The Quorum, Gurgaon.

Koel is Alice Cooper

Asked if she is playing Suhana Khan or Agastya Nanda's mother in The Archies, Koel denied both and revealed, “Neither. I play Bettie Cooper's mom -Alice Cooper. No two moms are the same…the emotion of being a mom and the one-sided, unrequited love is universal. And, that is something Bollywood catches very well. There are, of course, changes depending on the situation and character. However, this one-way love in mothers is universal. Playing a mother being a mother brought in a whole another layer to it.”

Ambitions and hard work of the star kids

Talking about the rapport she built with the star kids after working with them on the Zoya Akhtar film, Koel said, “Suhana will be helping me launch my book in Mumbai. She has become a good friend, as are Agastya, Khushi, and Vedang. It was really really fun to work with them. They are good kids ….I sound like such an aunty saying that! I am never an aunty, but these kids….they are very focussed.”

She added, “They may not be that focused over a long period of time. I do not know about that, but they are extremely focussed and know they have to work hard. Especially with these kids, the pressure that they have - coming from film families. (They know that) Everyone is saying ‘Oh, they just got it easy because of their last names’. They (the star kids) understand that. They understand that this is an opportunity for them and if they have to make good use of it, they have to pull themselves up. They know that and work hard for it. I love that! I love that they are unabashedly ambitious. They are so sure of themselves, they have all the anxieties and all that that comes in that age. But, I did learn that there is no shame in working towards one's ambitions.”

Koel the crossover actor

Recalling her early days in films, Koel said, "I was a crossover actor before this boundary became fluid. I just wanted to cross over, never wanted to be a crossover actor or something. Now with OTT, shorts and all that boundaries are blurred and there are roles for every age of woman and man.

“There is a demand for every kind of face, socio-economic background...because here they can't imagine you act ...they believe you have to look like or come from similar background will have to be cast...now, even that kind of diverse options are available with various platforms. I wanted my own dream sequences and i done all those films which were complete disasters...I wanted all that, that attention of the masses,” she said.

Koel the attention-seeker

Talking about her decision to write a book, Koel said, “I was born a storyteller, and I am a middle child so I am an attention-seeker as well. Even if I missed the bus, suddenly it would become a dramatic story of how it happened and why it happened...that is the kind of attention I need. The reason why I did not write a book earlier, was that writing a book required a lot of discipline. (It was) Not the lack of character development, storytelling, or writing - just the lack of discipline that comes with age and experience.”

About her book, she said, “You are in for a joyride. You are right - it is disruptive, rebellious, and it may feel like a jigsaw puzzle. There will be French (words) in there and you may feel ‘what does this mean? I do not understand what is going on!’ But, you are not supposed to understand it all. My intention is that as a reader, you may not feel comfortable all the time, but you still can't leave the book. The purpose of my life is to entertain and books, much more than webseries, help you escape the realities. And, you do that with your own mind - each person imagines different things with the same words written in a book."

Koel's life and Clearly Invisible In Paris

Asked if her real-life experiences seeped into the book, Koel said, “A lot of it. All the characters have parts of me. It has characters that have traits of myself, traits of people I know, people I admire, people I don't know and do not want to know at all. Everything is drawn from reality, but taken and put into a completely different scenario.”

She then cited an example of how an article about a man's death and his wife's inability to pay for his last rites sent her imagination rushing and inspired one of the characters in her book. “I read an article about this woman who lived with the dead body of her late husband because she did not have enough to pay for the last rites as per Catholic traditions. She had to pay the local mafia for the injections that could keep his body from decaying till the time she could arrange the money. That made me wonder about the emotional and physical troubles of that woman.”