A Great Leap of Faith
Kajal Aggarwal’s refusal to be bound by limitations posed by language and platform has paid off
When Kajal Aggarwal bagged her debut film at 21, not only did she not speak a word of Telugu, the Mumbaiborn Punjabi hardly followed Hindi cinema. But then Aggarwal has never shied away from a challenge. “I have been harping [on about] language not being a barrier for acting,” she says. “I believe that cinema establishes an emotional connection regardless of language.”
With Live Telecast, the Tamil horror web series which released on Disney+ Hotstar on February 12, she takes another risk. Aggarwal signed the show in 2018 despite warnings that it would sound the death knell for her film career. “I was told ‘you are going to dilute your market, you won’t get big films after this’,” she recalls. She shot for the show in 2019. The next year brought the Covid-19 pandemic which disrupted the theatrical business and brought OTT platforms to the forefront. “Back then, it was like, ‘let’s see how this goes since it is going to be the next thing’. Now it is already the big thing and it is here to stay forever. It only validated my decision to do it.”
There are other decisions Aggarwal took that have paid off. She left a job with a multinational beauty company and put her MBA plans on hold to work in the film industries in Hyderabad and Chennai. “It was a massive cultural shift,” says Aggarwal, who taught herself acting and two languages on the job. “But I am so glad I started my career in the South. The discipline and professionalism practised there have shaped my ideology of cinema.” The two industries have also given her fame, including a wax statute at Madame Tussauds in Singapore last year, and films such as Magadheera, Mr Perfect, Thuppakki and Mersal.
After 16 years of facing the camera, she is no longer preoccupied only by work. On October 30, 2020, Aggarwal married her best friend, Gautam Kitchlu. “My priorities have changed. Now I want to keep a balance,” says Aggarwal. The 18-hour work day, though, continues. She has signed three new films and has a release every month until May—Mosagallu (March), Hey Sinamika (April) and Acharya (May). It only reaffirms Aggarwal’s stance that “one’s marital status should never be a hindrance in your profession”.
Kajal Aggarwal’s decision to do a show for an OTT platform stood her in good stead in 2020