Kangana Ranaut Explains Why She Turned Director For ‘Manikarnika’

Kangana Ranaut’s team explains why the actor had to turn director on ‘Manikarnika’.

Kangana Ranaut at the launch of Manikarnika.

(Photo: Yogen Shah)

Whose film is it anyway? That’s the question that seems to hound films starring Kangana Ranaut lately. The actor’s last big release, Simran, had a fair bit of controversy around it regarding its writing credit and a tiff that that Kangana had with the film’s director Hansal Mehta. Now, a similar issue seems to be cropping up with Kangana’s underproduction film on the Rani of Jhansi.

A picture that’s doing rounds on social media of the clapboard of Kangana’s upcoming ambitious film Manikarnika, clearly shows the director’s name as Kangana Ranaut. This photograph has raised eyebrows because Krish Jagarlamudi is actually directing the period film.

While Krish has directed only one film in Bollywood so far - Akshay Kumar’s Gabbar Is Back, he is a celebrated filmmaker in the Telugu film industry, having bagged Filmfare awards for his films Gamyam and Vedam. Krish’s Kanche in 2015 even won the National Award for Best Feature Film in Telugu. So, it came as a surprise for industry insiders when Kangana Ranaut’s name appeared as the director on the clapboard of Manikarnika instead of Krish’s.

As soon as the picture started circulating, raising smirks and quizzical tweets online, team Kangana Ranaut quickly put out an explanation via Instagram.

The statement clarified that Krish Jagarlamudi is the director of Manikarnika and that Kangana had just stepped in to shoot the patchwork, since Krish was busy with another film.

The only reason why this picture caused a buzz was the history that Kangana has with allegations of being “controlling” and “interfering” in her films. Also, the industry hasn’t forgotten that the Rani of Jhansi biopic was started by Ketan Mehta and then “taken over” by Kangana. The actor had a bitter battle of words with the screenwriter of Simran over the writing credits of the film. Then there are Kangana’s leaked messages during the making of Simran, in which she allegedly claims that she had to direct parts of the film because the director abandoned the film after having issues with her.

Hansal himself recently tweeted while looking back at Simran, stating that he “wasn’t totally in control of the film”.

Kangana has on her part clarified that she only wants to actively contribute to her films and that in return she gets called an “interfering bit**” for it.

There were reports of tension between Kangana and Manikarnika’s director Krish on the sets of the film back in January 2018, we hope the clapboard isn’t a culmination of that. Since Krish is directing the NTR biopic, he might just have been too busy to shoot the patchwork of the Rani Laxmibai biopic.