After Shah Rukh Khan in Pathaan, Kareena Kapoor tries action as she plays Black Widow: ‘Will Indianise it, tell it in a different way’

 

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When asked how much does she resonate with Black Widow, the iconic character played by Scarlett Johansson in Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, she said, “The fact that it’s so iconic, Black Widow is so powerful and fierce, somewhere I resonated with it when they kept sending me stuff to read up on, her story and character. I instantly connected with her and got an idea why they wanted me to play this. Somehow I’m also a very fierce person, in a good way, in a positive way. Fierce can go either way but it is like a compliment for me. Somehow if you do it positively, it works for you. So I felt very close to Black Widow, I could feel a connection.”

Kareena says, she’s now ready to give her own personal touch to the Black Widow character as it will be played in Hindi. Kareena has not yet dubbed for the series, but she hopes to add her personal touch to the character. About how her take would be to play this character, the actor said, “Lets see what I can add, a little bit of mystery, a little bit of power and intrigue is what I’m thinking of adding to the character.” When asked if she’d also add a little bit of the glamorous Poo (Kareena’s iconic character from Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham) to it, she laughed and said, “no, Poo Black widow, imagine.”

 

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In Kareena’s long acting career spanning of two decades, she’s played some of the most versatile roles, however, the actor has shied away from action oriented roles. On finally embracing one in The Wastelanders, Kareena says that it is because people are willing to explore female action films.

She said, “We’ve grown up watching action packed films in Bollywood, but I think now is the time when people are open to exploring female actors doing different kind of roles, including action roles. While I’m yet to explore this genre in a feature film, I’d love to play a spy or an assassin on screen, I think it’s high time I tried action, I think I’ll be able to pull it off. So I’m looking at playing Black Widow as a start in that direction.”

When asked if she thinks stars are being hired for audio series because of their star pull, she agrees. She said, “I think so. I think there’s always this craze anyway, even when this Marvel Audible is very different from the Marvel (Cinematic universe). The character is the same but the story is entirely different. Everyone, at any age, is a Marvel fan, everyone knows about their characters, so to Indianise it and have it told in a completely different way, and in Hindi, it is going to target a different kind of an audience. The entire mass would love to know here and listen to it, I think it will be huge.”

Even as Kareena felt an instant connection with Black Widow and was convinced that she can do it, when asked if her children Taimur and Jeh are also superhero fans and if they’re excited that their parents are all set to play superheroes soon (Saif Ali Khan plays Star-Lord [Peter Quill] in the Audible series). She said, “My younger son is 2, he is too young for it. My older son, ya, he is into Thor and Wolverine and he and his father keep discussing this more than me.”

Since actors are trained for the audio-visual medium and not voice alone, what is the kind of mental prep that Kareena go through for The Wastelanders, she shared, “It is different, it has its own charm as you can visualise and imagine how things could be. It’s a challenge, it might be difficult, but I think that’s why they’ve got such different actors onboard, whether it is Sharad, it is Jaideep, Vrijesh or Masaba, we all are people who are really ready to take on the challenge and do something out of the box because it will be like pushing the boundary as the fact is that you don’t have anything to refer to our look at, you just have to play that character up and down with your voice.”