Kalki Koechlin: After you shoot for a horror film, you need a ritual to come out of it

Dark roles seem to follow Kalki Koechlin and she isn’t resisting. After her eerie turn in Ek Thi Daayan, the actor continues to explore psychologically intense narratives, most recently with the paranormal thriller Bhay: The Gaurav Tiwari Mystery and another horror film currently in the works.

Kalki admits that working on such dark material can take a mental toll, which is why she follows a personal ritual to detach from her characters. Speaking about the impact of intense roles, she said, “Generally, it’s not like I’m worried about horror when I’m shooting it. It’s just the intensity of the role sometimes that gets to you. When you shoot for 12 hours doing something very intense, you need a ritual to come out of it. When I get home, I watch stand-up comedy, or I do some dance — like a silly, fun dance or an exercise routine with fun elements in it—just something that really counters the feeling of heaviness.”


Interestingly, despite frequently working in the genre, Kalki admits she is not a fan of horror films as a viewer. “I hate horror. I’m very scared - I’m like the audience, I get scared very quickly,” she said. However, she added that the experience of filming horror is markedly different. “When you’re shooting horror, I don’t feel that way because it’s quite technical. You’re not really feeling all the vibes,” she said.



That said, Kalki acknowledged that there were moments on the sets of Bhay that felt genuinely unsettling. “On Bhay, there were some vibes. There were some pretty scary things going on. Lights were flickering, and one day a tree fell on the ambulance— it was very dramatic. It’s scary,” she shared.


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