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The latest episode of Koffee With Karan Season 9 welcomed actors Sidharth Malhotra and Kiara Advani back to the Koffee couch. Among the host's questions for the couple, there was one that hit closer to home for Advani, touching on something that made her the center of intense online scrutiny this year. For Malhotra, meanwhile, it was the criticism surrounding his latest title, the supernatural fantasy The Vvaan: Force of the Forrest.
This year, Advani played the leading female role as Nadia in Geetu Mohandas's gangster-drama Toxic: A Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups, one of the biggest Indian film's this year. But, quickly upon its release, the internet was flooded with opinions about her portrayal in the song Tabahi, criticising her for her intimate scenes with Yash, with many questioning why a married woman and a mother would choose to play such a part.
Speaking to Karan Johar, who asked her about the heavy online trolling and controversy over her scenes in the film, Advani expressed that what helped her was her husband's reaction to it and clarified that such controversies have been occurring for decades now.
"I think I actually fed off his (Sidharth Malhotra's) energy because he had not cared about it. He's never brought it up. We've never spoken about this. It didn't affect him. He was not bothered," she said.
"It's been happening now for donkey's years, for decades, like from Aishwarya Rai Bachchan to so many wonderful actors, but what I must touch upon is that when I was seeing what was going on on the Internet, there was a massive reaction from people who had already started calling it out. Calling out the hypocrisy, and I really didn't feel the need to even justify it."
The actor also spoke on the film's upsetting failure, but at the same time, being lauded for chasing something new. "On Day 1, it was heartbreaking and especially for this film, because as a team in totality, I don't think any of us saw it coming. When it misfired, despite it opening to what it did, that weekend, I was very low about it, but then there was a lot of appreciation for the fact that I had gone out of my comfort zone for playing a role. I think, in my journey, this will be defining," she said.
As for Malhotra, when asked how he felt about the critical response to Vvaan: Force of the Forrest, the actor said, "I think they are doing their job; we're doing our job. There is an India, and there is a Bharat, and I think Bharat is what is coming out to watch our films. They want to watch something rooted, something that means something to them, rooted in culture. So The Vvaan came perfectly fitting that bracket, whether it's the writing, performances, or the sequences."