Warrior Queen

- Sandipan Dalal

Looking back on 2017, one moment lights up Kangana Ranaut, the memory of it breaking her face into a divine smile. Collecting snowflakes in her palms outside her eco-friendly villa nestled in an organic farm in Manali on a cold December evening. For the 30-year-old star, it was another personal milestone—her farm has been nearly two years in the making. Turns out, the year was just as significant for her personally as it was for her fiery public persona, which has been a tabloid and front page staple.

In September, she started work on what she acknowledges as the most challenging film of her life, Manikarnika: The Queen Of Jhansi, in which she plays Rani Lakshmibai. It’s a historical figure Ranaut looked up to during her growing years. Determined to do justice to the role, the actor performed stunts that left her with 15 stitches on her forehead, a visible scar and a painful ligament injury. As work on the film wraps up and Ranaut approaches her 31st birthday on March 24, we catch her in an introspective mood.

You’ve just finished taping for your film Manikarnika: The Queen Of Jhansi, which left you with several stitches on your forehead and a twisted ankle. Was it the most challenging film of your life?

According to me, Rani Lakshmibai is one of the most prominent feminists India has ever seen. Even before she started the rebel movement in 1857 and led an army of women, she fought for important things. She has always been an inspirational figure to me, and I have been meaning to do a film based on her life and times for a few years now. A few collaborations were in the making, but they fell through for various reasons. As director R Krishna and his writers (who wrote