MUMBAI: Isha Koppikar started her journey as an actor with South films. She rose to fame in Bollywood with her song Khallas in the film Company. Recently, she was seen in a web series titled Suranga which premiered on Atrangii App. 

TellyChakkar recently interacted with Isha and spoke to her about still being remembered as Khallas Girl, South films doing better than Hindi films, and more…

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Company released 20 years ago, but people still remember you as the Khallas Girl. How does that feel?

It’s nice to have a name; it’s better to have a name than not remembered. So, if people see me and say Khallas Girl, at least I have given some sort of a hit like Madhuri is called Ek Do Teen Girl and Hema ji is called Dream Girl, and I am called the Khallas Girl. It only makes me feel that there’s a way of remembering me.

You have worked in South and Hindi films both, so what do you have to say about South films doing better than Bollywood movies at the box office?

I started working in the South 20 years ago. My first Filmfare Award was in the South. Unfortunately, whatever I did there wasn’t acknowledged here. People didn’t even know that I had done something there. I always understood the value of the South and let me tell you why. First of all for their discipline; dedication and the respect that they have, here (Bollywood) we never had. Actors used to never come on time. There (South) the first shot used to be at 6 am and packed up at 5 pm. The shooting of the movies used to get over in 20 days. I am talking about how it was 20 years ago. The scripts that they have are fantastic. Today, Drishyam 2 is doing numbers at the box office; it’s a Malayalam film script. Why don’t we think of such scripts? I am from Bollywood and I love it, but my question to Bollywood is why we can’t have such scripts? Why can’t we think of RRR, Baahubali, KGF, Pushpa? I have done so many South films that were remade in Bollywood.

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Tell us something about your upcoming projects…

I am doing a multi-lingual South film; it’s a huge 100-crore project. It’s a science fiction film titled Ayalaan. We were done with the shooting of the film in December 2021. There were some songs between Sivakarthikeyan and Rakul Preet Singh which I think they finally finished in May 2022, and then the film went into post-production. Each frame has to be corrected as it's science fiction and has a lot of graphics.

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