Exclusive! Taapsee Pannu on the Kabir Singh’s ‘flawed’ character: There needs to be a certain kind of redemption

Taapse Pannu starrer ‘Thappad’ trailer was released today and it showcased a hard hitting take on violence in relationship. As the protagonist who faces a slap from her husband during a house party, is determined to break the relationship, demanding she deserves love and respect.

Interestingly last year Shahid Kapoor starrer ‘Kabir Singh’ had sparked a debate on violence in relationship as the film featured the titular character who resorted to violent ways to express his love. The film faced a lot of flak for showcasing a toxic relationship. Sharing her point of view on the flawed character of Kabir Singh, Taapsee exclusively told ETimes, “See, I’ve said this time and again that there’s no problem in having a flawed characters, I myself have played a flawed characters in a lot of films, and I’ve even played an antagonist in the film. But, you know, there needs to be a certain kind of redemption, or result or reciprocation or you have to have a ramification of some things. You cannot say that it’s okay to be flawed. You want everyone to feel that it’s heroic to be flawed. No, it's not. In a country like India, where one hairstyle of a hero in a film like ‘Tere Naam’ became hit, it felt like half the city had the same hairdo. We’ve been following the concept of ‘pyaar dosti hai’ for years now, right? This is the impact of cinema on the society.”

Upon watching ‘Kabir Singh’, a man ended up killing his girlfriend. Reacting to the same Taapsee added, “‘Kabir Singh’ ended up validating a lot of these things. It was already happening in the society but ‘Kabir Singh’ ended up validating which is a problem. I know Hollywood cinema and European cinema have flawed characters but their society is not impacted by cinema as much as the Indian society is. If tomorrow Tom Cruise sports a particular haircut, no one in America will follow suit just because Tom Cruise has done it. But in India, people are impacted by the cinema and they tend to follow what they watch. So, that’s why you need to be little more aware as an actor. There’s no problem in playing flawed characters, they are fun to play as an actor. But let's have certain redemption for it also, so it doesn't look like if we are normalizing it.”