Ranaut, the unofficial ‘Queen’ of Bollywood for all odd and even reasons, stepped into the industry as a model turned actress. She hailed from a small town named Bhambla, now Surajpur, in Himachal Pradesh.
A career change on the way
Kangana’s life had always been unpredictable and full of turns all throughout. Initially, she was not as keen to pursue a career in acting as her parents were. Rather, as she says many a times, she was paranoid with the scores that she would make in her school. Only a failed Chemistry unit test result in her twelfth standard made her abandon further plans of appearing for All India Pre Medical Test and try luck in the glam world instead.
This was the time Kangana moved to Delhi in order to pursue her career as a model even though she was not quite sure if she can achieve her career dreams. However, it was the God gifted features of Kangana that impressed Elite Modelling Agency who then decided to give her a break as a model.
But Kangana is definitely not among those who get glam struck very easily and forget to look beyond the temporary glitz and glam life offers. She soon became aware that this phase of success is not organic and she has to explore a more consistent career. With this decision, life took a second major turn for the ‘Queen.’
Kangana as emphatic theatre actor
Kangana joined the Asmita Theatre Group during this time and started her training as an actor under the mentorship of theatre director Arvind Gaur. This new avenue of her professional life gave Kangana to work in numerous theatres, which even includes Girish Karnad-scripted Taledanda.
The theatre limelight brightly shone on this ‘successful heroine of Bollywood in the making’ when she performed both as a male and a female actor in Girish Karnad's Rakt-Kalyan, challenged her own talents and emerged as more successful actor than ever.
Mumbai summons the queen
This girl of the hills was now standing at a juncture of life when it was high-time she thought seriously about exploring her career prospects as an actor. So, she moved to Mumbai now.
Series of unpredictable incidents were awaiting her in the B-town. She was supposed to make her first debut in Deepak Shivdasani-directed and Ramesh Sharma and Pahlaj Nilani produced ‘I Love You Boss’, but ended up bagging the lead role in Anurag Basu Directed and Mahesh Bhatt produced ‘Gangster’ at the age of only seventeen.
Even though she was first auditioned for Gangster, Kangana was rejected due to her age and Chitrangada Singh was decided as the lead cast. But luck was on the side of ‘Queen of hearts’ Kangana. Singh’s unavailability made Mahesh Bhatt rethink about Kangana for the role. The film became a commercial success after its release in 2006, and Kangana grabbed the attention of millions of audience. Her first debut in the B-town awarded her the first Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut together with various other debutant awards.
The first controversy in B-Town
A controversy cropped up during this time in Kangana’s life.
Kangana was close to Aditya Pancholi and his wife Zarina Wahab during the initial years in Bollywood, and publicly referred to them as family away from family.
But things took a topsy-turvy turn in this relationship when Kangana went about totally open about being physically molested by Aditya Pancholi under the influence of alcohol.
When Pancholi countered the claim saying that he had been cohabiting with Kangana for some time and gave ₹2.5 million to her, the Queen literally smashed the claim from its roots. She said that she had already returned Pancholi ₹5 million as goodwill gesture, but the act has eft her physical and mentally drained out.
A mixed bag B-town career
Kangana’s first successful break in Bollywood film industry was followed by a mixed bag of movies that were hits, averages as well as flops in the box office. Thus, soon after the smashing box office collection of Gangster in 2006 came the Mohit Suri-directed drama Woh Lamhe that could not make it to the box office. However, Kangana’s extraordinary portrayal of the schizophrenic actress of the 70s, Parveen Babi, could not bypass public and critic attention. Suneel Darshan's musical drama Shakalaka Boom Boom, that was released in the following year, also did not prove any luck for the Queen.
A break in a negative avatar named Neha in Anurag Basu directed Life In A Metro in 2007, stabilized the box office ratings for Kangana again. The Queen of hearts was also felicitated with Stardust Award for Breakthrough Performance award in Female category for brilliantly portraying the role of an aggressively career conscious woman who does not mind being nasty with her boss for climbing up the hierarchical ladder.
The next smashing hit came for Kangana in 2008 in the form of Fashion, directed by Madhur Bhandarkar. The movie not only made a worldwide revenue collection of approximately US$10 million, it is considered as a landmark in her career. Fashion also brought Kangana National Film Award and Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress on that year.
Career graph again throttled for Kangana for the time being with not-so-successful movies like Mohit Suri directed Raaz: The Mystery Continues , Anurag Basu directed thriller Kites.
But luck was soon on its way for this girl of the hills. Kangana got her most befitting role as a fictional film actor Rehana in Milan Luthria-directed gangster film Once Upon a Time in Mumbai which added another feather in her hat of Bollywood successes.
A fishy smell again
However, during this time, Kangana became a talk of the time for a different reason – gossips about her alleged linkup with Hrithik Roshan. Nobody knows what actually happened between them, but the exchange of allegations, lawsuits and never-ending legal battles exposed that something fishy is obviously around.
Role change became game changer
Kangana was being criticised now for being too typecast in her roles as panic-stricken woman when Anand L. Rai directed Tanu Weds Manu came in 2011 as a game changer for the Queen of hearts. This romantic comedy helped her get rid of her typical ‘phobic and hysteric’ characters and explore a light hearted comedy role. Her performance was praised and she bagged numerous awards like Screen Award and Zee Cine Award for Best Actress that year.
One hit followed by few flops became an unspoken Bollywood forte for Kangana, and this success in Tanu weds Manu was not an exception. So, this successful romantic comedy was again followed by flops like Game, Double Dhamaal, Rascals, Miley Naa Miley, Tezz, Shootout at Wadala, Krissh 3, Rajjo even though Kangana got her chance of exploring roles of different tastes and flavours.
Again, it was the time for rising of the success graph of this girl from the small town of Himachal, and Vikas Bahl directed Queen happened to her in 2014. The film made a box office collection of 970 million, and once again proved to the film fraternity of B-Town that she is the queen of queens. Her performance was awarded with Filmfare Award and the National Film Award in that year.
The sequel Tanu Weds Manu: Returns came in 2015, and became critically acclaimed even though it was never counted as a smashing hit in the box office. IT was a global success though and the movie made a collection of ₹2.4 billion worldwide.
Her Bollywood career in the box office has not been very significant after Queen. She explored different roles in different movies like Rangoon (2017), Simran (2017), Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi (2019), Judgementall Hai Kya (2019) and Panga (2020), but nothing seemed to click for her.
The audience awaits
We are now looking forward to find Kangana Ranawat in her usual self as a powerful actor in two completely contrasting roles; the role of politician Jayalalithaa, the celebrated Indian politician and actor in the trilingual biopic, Thalaiva directed by A.L. Vijay and in the action film Dhaakar, directed by Razneesh Razy Ghai.
By
Apara Bhattacharya
For Instanewsgram Movies