Kalki Koechlin is an Indian film actress of French descent who debuted in Anurag Kashyap's critically acclaimed Hindi film Dev.D. She played the character of Chandramukhi in Dev.D, which is a modern take on Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's Bengali novella Devdas and eventually won the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress for it
Background
Kalki Koechlin was born to French parents in a small village in Pondicherry. Her parents had come to India as hippies in the 1970s and settled there after they fell in love with the country.
Her father Joel Koechlin came to India from France, 38 years ago and met her mother, Francoise Armandie, at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Auroville, Tamil Nadu. Her parents are devotees of Sri Aurobindo. Eventually they settled in Kallatty, a village near Ooty, where he established a business designing hang-gliders and microlight aircraft, and Kalki was born here.Her ancestor Maurice Koechlin, a French structural engineer, played an important role in the design and construction of the Eiffel Tower
Education
Koechlin studied at Hebron School, Ooty and her parents then insisted she attend university. Koechlin studied drama and theatre in Goldsmiths, University of London, where she also worked with a theatre company called Theatre of Relativity for two years. She performed in various plays like David Hare’s The Blue Room, Marivaux’s The Dispute and a devised play The Rise of the Wild Hunt in her two-year stint with the theatre group.
Career
Koechlin later decided to move to Mumbai to try her luck in Hindi cinema. She was doing modeling assignments for television commercials after being shortlisted for the role of Chandramukhi (Chanda) in Dev.D. She was one of the people to be auditioned for the role of the prostitute. Koechlin can speak Tamil, English and French; she had to learn Hindi to prepare for her role in Dev.D. Koechlin was apprehensive about how people will judge her after seeing her in the role.She co-founded Quaff Theatre, a theatre group in 2008.
Upon release, her portrayal of the modern Chandramukhi, who goes from an innocent schoolgirl (Leni) to a vivacious prostitute (Chanda) was critically acclaimed saying "Kalki shows sparks in the scenes". For her work in Dev D, she was awarded the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2010. Koechlin paired with the actor Imran Khan for a Coca Cola advertisement. The advert was voted the best of the IPL by the TOI Advertisement award
In 2011, she was seen in Shaitan. Film critic Komal Nahta commented, "Kalki Koechlin performs with admirable ease". She then starred in Zoya Akhtar's Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara alongside Abhay Deol, Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akhtar and Katrina Kaif; film critic Taran Adarsh commented, "Kalki plays a Mumbai girl belonging to the upper crust and though it's not a typical 'heroine' role, Kalki infuses life into the character, fitting into the conceived character accurately". Komal Nahta wrote, "Kalki Koechlin does very well in a difficult role she stands her own amongst the other actors". Box office India declared the film a super hit.
Kalki has also helped her husband Anurag Kashyap to write the 2011 film That Girl in Yellow Boots. Koechlin will be seen in Ram Gopal Varma's Happy Journey.