WITH NEW INTENT AND PURE INSTINCT

Twelve years in, Kiara Advani reflects on instinct, resilience and reinvention while the directors who shaped her performances reveal the actor behind the lens

- SHWETA SUNNY

It's the first Monday in March and the mood is summery, fresh and bright. Personifying that, our cover star for the month, Kiara Advani, walks on to the set wearing a floral, multicoloured sundress. Fresh, bare skin and her naturally soft, wavy tresses frame her face as she surfs through the clothing rack before heading for hair and makeup. Her arrival, to put in two words, was easy and settled in. She just fit in without making noise.

In Bollywood, there are actors who arrive with ambition alone, and then there are those who arrive with instinct. Advani has always belonged to the latter. Long before film sets and box office numbers, before Fugly (2014) and Kabir Singh (2019), there was a classroom full of children, and a young Advani who had already found her first audience.

“I always wanted to be an actor. Early on, my parents figured that I had this little keeda in me,” she says, simply. Not as a distant dream, but as something she held close while growing up. Her parents, protective yet practical, insisted she finish her education first. In the interim before her first break, her father nudged her towards having a set routine in her daily life. That routine led her to her mother's playschool, where she worked as a teacher. “I used that as my mini stage,” she smiles. “Those toddlers were my first audience, and a very forgiving one, as they would always have the biggest smiles if I did anything.”

It's clear on set that she knows her way around. Once the photographer is ready for the first shot, she transforms effortlessly. There is no flip switch, no magic wand, just her expressive almond-shaped eyes flirting with the camera swiftly, and that goes to show she is a pure natural at this.