Manikarnika trailer launch: Acting is a chore, says Kangana Ranaut, refuses to address clash with Hrithik Roshan’s Super 30

Kangana Ranaut hinted that her future lies in film direction at the launch of the first trailer for Manikarnika. Kangana stepped into original director Radha Krishna Jagarlamudi’s shoes after he departed the project due to what has been in turn blamed on scheduling conflicts and creative differences.

“No actor wants to be out in the sun,” said Kangana at the Mumbai trailer launch, according to the Indian Express. “They want to be in their vanity van. But I don’t know what is it about me that I love directing more than anything else. I don’t know why people consider direction a job. I consider acting as a job.”

Kangana has been making inroads into the direction game ever since it was reported that she allegedly hijacked her previous film, Simran, from director Hansal Mehta - a situation they’ve both denied. Similar reports emerged when Jagarlamudi departed Manikarnika, citing scheduling conflicts with his upcoming biopic of NTR. Kangana had earlier refuted rumours of her having taken over as director, but the trailer credits both Jagarlamudi and Kangana as the ones who called the shots. Addressing rumours of a rift, Kangana had told Mumbai Mirror, “Not true, we speak every day.”

Manikarnika is currently in post-production, with the VFX studios in a race against time to meet the film’s Republic Day release date, which Kangana said she insisted on. “It was my decision to come on Republic Day. I have driven everybody nuts for it. The VFX studio is currently a battleground,” she said at the launch.

Manikarnika will clash at the Republic Day box office with Hrithik Roshan-starrer, Super 30 - another film that lost its director midway through production. Vikas Bahl was named amid the #MeToo movement that struck the Indian film industry recently, and Hrithik had tweeted that he would not want any person who has been proven guilty of misconduct to be involved in the film.

Hrithik and Kangana have a turbulent history themselves, with Kangana having accused him of harassment. “People who keep their wives as trophies and keep young girls as their mistresses should also be punished... I am referring to Hrithik Roshan people should not work with him as well,” Kangana had said in an interview to Zee News. She refused to talk about the box office clash at the trailer launch.

Manikarnika also stars Danny Denzongpa, Ankita Lokhande, Jisshu Sengupta, Suresh Oberoi and Kulbushan Kharbanda, among others. The film will reportedly be released on 3000 screens on January 25.

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