Tanya Maniktala on Kill: I wanted to be associated with something like this

At the heart of Kill, which has been touted by its producers as the most violent Indian movie ever made, is its leading lady Tanya Maniktala, who knew she was in for a "ride" when she first read the script by director Nikhil Nagesh Bhat.

The director had written down every little detail about the elaborate fight sequences in the movie that features Tanya, Lakshya and Raghav Juyal in main roles.

The story follows the story of army commando Amrit (Lakshya) who boards the same train in which his girlfriend is travelling with her family. They soon realise that they are trapped in the train as it has been taken over by Fani (Raghav) and his gang, who begin to mercilessly kill the passengers.

The actor told PTI, “After I was finalised, I went through the script and all the action sequences that you see in the movie were in the script. He (Nikhil) had written down everything and was still fleshing out and creating more nuances. When you read something like that, you try to create it in your head, and you know that you are in for a ride. It might be a small role, but it's so important and I wanted to be associated with something like this, I wanted to be the catalyst for this fire, and that is how things started.”

Tanya, who has starred in prominent roles in multiple OTT series like Flames (2018-2023), A Suitable Boy (2020), Tooth Pari (2023) and P.I. Meena (2023), remembers discussing her role with the director who was confident that her portrayal will bring an emotional heft to the story.

She recalled the conversation she had with Nikhil and said, "Nikhil sir told me this is what is on paper, but I want to see how you make your character come alive because there's only so much I can do to her on paper. After all, action is what we are playing with, but how you make yourself the underlying emotion behind all of that is entirely up to you. When people tell me they connected with her and felt empathy for her, I feel ‘I did my job’.”

When the team was filming the intense action sequences, Tanya said she was concerned for Lakshya and Raghav. She consciously decided not to watch it in person because she wanted to experience the unfiltered intensity of the movie on the big screen.

“In the scenes, where I witnessed action happening in front of me, I was holding on to things so tightly, I was so scared. I was like, ‘Is everybody okay?’ The boys are so well-trained, it's muscle memory for them, they know exactly what they're going to do and what's going to happen next,” she said, adding that the off-camera environment was a lot of fun.

Looking at the men doing all the action, Tanya claimed she kept pestering the director saying, ‘Let me hit one or two guys’.

Although her wish remained unfulfilled with Kill, she hopes to explore action genre in future projects. “I would love to be associated with something like that, where there’s 'maar dhaar'. Women doing action is simply wicked, and I would love to do that,” the Delhi-born actor said.

Asked her if she was worried about Kill receiving flak for the depiction of violence, Tanya said that Kill does not “glorify violence”, and rather portrays action as an “art form”.

"By keeping it as real as possible, Nikhil sir has made it clear that in no way he intends to glorify violence or action. We are trying to create a chain of something new.” About parallels between Kill and the iconic romance-drama Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995) as both begin on train, the actor said, “Guneet ma’am (producer) pointed out that if ‘DDLJ’ had been an action movie, it would be Kill.” “...It's a huge compliment because it's not just action, romance, comedy, and drama. It's driven by all these human emotions and is a full package combined,” Tanya said.

Kill, which is still running in cinemas, has garnered significant acclaim and has amassed over Rs 16 crore at the box office.

The actor also reflected on the reception to her debut film Mumbaikar, which released on JioCinema last year.

She starred alongside Vikrant Massey, Vijay Sethupathi, Sanjay Mishra, and Sachin Khedekar in the film, a remake of the 2017 Tamil movie Maanagaram.

Despite the great names associated with the film and the directorial prowess of Santosh Sivan, the timing of the release was not good, she believes.

“We shot Mumbaikar in 2020 and it was released at the end of last year, so all of my expectations were done by that time because I thought we already sort of missed it with the timeline. Like had it been released way earlier, it would have picked up.” Kill is produced by Dharma Productions and Sikhya Entertainment.