In her debut film Gangster in 2006, she was a mother, a murderess and an alcoholic all rolled into one. At the time, Kangna Ranaut was all of 18. In her subsequent films her characters got darker, crazier and more disturbed. In Fashion, she’s a failing model who dies of a drug overdose and in Woh Lamhe, a schizophrenic dumped in a mental asylum. So when the trailer of her latest film Queen opens with the line “ Mera sense of humour bahut achha hai, aapko dheere dheere pata chalega ,” you’re immediately drawn to this new Ranaut. She confesses that the monotony of playing a woman on the verge of a breakdown got to her too. “For the longest time I felt like I’m not going beyond what I had done in Gangster . Even though Fashion won me a National Award, I stayed within my limits. With Queen I have broken that barrier,” she says.

It’s been a long day for the 26-year-old actress. She’s been seated behind a wooden desk at the Phantom office (Queen’s Production Company) for close to five hours giving press interviews, occasionally stepping out to touch up her make-up for a photo. Dressed in a pale pink dress and with her curly locks left untamed she feebly announces, “I feel a bit tired. You know how hectic promotions can be.” Her PR team is in a flutter because she’s already running late for another appointment. Ironically, Ranaut has been famously ignored in the past during the promotions of some multi-starrers she’s acted in. But the fate of Queen rests solely on her and she’s happy to shoulder the burden. “It’s great when you’re the protagonist. You are the hero on set and the story follows you. What else do you want? I also get my own chair with my name written on it. In a multi-starrer, you have to match your schedule with the hero and he will decide when the shoot kicks off. And there’s definitely no chair,” she says with a laugh.

Filmmaker Vikas Bahl, who previously directed the acclaimed Chillar Party , says he zeroed in on Ranaut halfway through fleshing out the character of Rani. Once he was done, he prayed she wouldn’t turn him down and even threatened not to make the film without her. “I don’t take such things seriously,” says Ranaut dismissively. “If I had said no, I’m sure this story would have come along with someone else,” she adds. There’s nothing extraordinary about Rani. She’s timid, awkward and usually the butt of jokes. After her big fat Punjabi wedding is called off, she ends up alone on an European sojourn, which was meant to be her honeymoon. As she makes her way through Paris and Amsterdam in a frumpy kurti and jeans ensemble, she finds the confidence she was lacking earlier. “I wanted someone who came from the same world as Rani, or there was a high chance of the character becoming a caricature,” explains Bahl.

Bahl’s fixation with Ranaut makes one wonder if the actress’s own transformation from a Himachali girl who spoke broken English to her current chic self served as inspiration for the plot. Ranaut’s not convinced of this theory. “It’s the last role that I thought would be offered to me. People consider me a style icon. In my last film ( Krrish 3 ), I played a superwoman. I don’t know how to be a girl who is ignored by society and has no self respect. I’ve always been quite popular in school as well,” she says. Despite the disconnect, she ended up writing most of her own lines in the movie, an experience which triggered the writer in her. Earlier this year she enrolled for a scriptwriting course in New York. She left it halfway to promote Queen but is intent on completing it in June. “I felt that if I learnt the technicalities of the craft, I’d be able to convey my thoughts better. I think this is one of the best things I’ve done for myself. I’ve been working for seven to eight years. So going back to school, sitting with students and taking lectures was so refreshing,” she says.

By the end of this year Ranaut will have another release , Revolver Rani where she plays the title role of a bandit.

It’s safe to say Ranaut has stepped into the best phase of her career. She seems thrilled by the development and yet equally detached. In the past too she’s been very vocal about actors and filmmakers being “self-obsessed”. To protect herself from falling into the same trap, she’s consciously built a life beyond films. “How else can you evolve as a human being? I like to stay in different countries, learn different languages. I’d also like to do a baking course in Paris. Maybe I’ll go to Germany to learn something else. This is also what I’d like to tell young girls. They should sponsor their own vacations and education, and make their own life,” she says.

Within cinema, Ranaut’s world seems to be growing as well. She’s recently written a period film, an assignment for her course, and tried her hand at directing a nine-minute short film. Next on her agenda is directing a full-fledged feature film. “It took seven years to get a film like Queen . I don’t want to wait seven more years before I land a similar project. As an actor I have pretty much satisfied my own creativity. I’d like to do different things now,” she says.

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