Trolls Ask Me ‘Where’s the Husband?’: Kalki Koechlin

Kalki Koechlin recently announced her pregnancy to the world and since then the actor has been posting cute pics of her baby-bump on social media. We met her during the promotions of her new show Bhram, a psychological thriller, and she told us about dealing with trolls after her pregnancy announcement, and how she managed to shoot a scary thriller during her first trimester.

In the show, which is based on K Hari Kumar’s novel — The Other Side Of Her, Kalki plays the role of a novelist Alisha Khanna, who, after an accident, is diagnosed with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). The eight episode series is now streaming on Zee5.

Here’s what we chatted about:

What is the best part of being pregnant and what’s the worst till now?

Kalki: Okay, the best part is like you, you feel like you are God. Like you are creating life inside you and you become super, hyper aware of everything that’s going on inside you and it may just make you much more conscious in that sense. The worst part is the vomiting and morning sickness for the first three months were just terrible for me.

Were you pregnant while shooting Bhram?

Kalki: Yes, I was, in fact, in my first trimester, which is the hardest. I was puking, I had dizziness, I had nausea. Only my director, Sangeeth sir, and my make-up artists Angie knew that I was pregnant. So, thankfully she was really like my rock. Getting me the right kind of food, making sure I was getting, you know, rest in between and things like that. But it was really tough.

Also, when I was pregnant, I didn’t watch anything thriller, horror or anything scary. How were you shooting it? That mental frame?

Kalki: See when you’re shooting, it’s different because it’s not scary. Like, you know, those sounds that you hear and the ghosts, they are not there. However, I have my Netflix content, you know, you get those recommendations. My recommendation was always serial killers because I love watching these docus, you know, Assasination of Versace and all that. And so that’s gone now. Now I’m watching happy stuff. I watched Crashing recently, which was cute. And I watched some mom show actually about, you know, post being a mother.

Talking about Bhram, how difficult was it to get into that character and having that mental space and you know, how do you do that? And also being pregnant?

Kalki: Yeah. Bhram was difficult because yeah, we were, um, we were shooting firstly in like small remote areas of Shimla and Kufri and all that. And sometimes we’d have long walks in the jungle to get to the location and you know, shooting nights in the jungle and things like that. But, it was great in the sense that I was only doing that. So I was away from Bombay, I was in that place so I could really stay in the character and be, be that character for a while.

When you came out in the open about your pregnancy, were you scared about the fact that being unmarried in India, getting pregnant, what will people say and what the comments would be like?

Kalki: I think I was a little nervous about the first announcement, but I also knew that these were going to be judgments that are going to come up. At the same time, whenever I’ve met anyone face to face, like my neighbours, everybody’s been overjoyed and super supportive. Only on social media, of course you have your trolls. So like where’s the husband? How can you do this? And you know, like don’t wear tight clothes, don’t show your belly and all that stuff. So that. That comes with my territory. I’ve been used to doing that for the last 10 years with just being a celebrity. So I am okay. I’m okay right now.

When you got pregnant, what was your boyfriend’s (Guy Hershberg) reaction? What, how did you react?

Kalki: He was overjoyed. He was on the moon. I was not ready for it. Neither of us. We were expecting and we were thinking of having a kid in a year or two, you know. But it’s happened and I didn’t believe it. I went in immediately, got another pregnancy test just to check and make sure. But once it was confirmed, yes, I accepted it. I’ve been wanting to have a child for the last few years, so I’m happy. I’m really happy I found the right person to have the child with and that I have the support I need around me.