Kiara Advani addresses criticism for Kabir Singh: We can't cancel everyone

Kiara Advani and Shahid Kapoor in a still from Kabir Singh

Shahid Kapoor and Kiara Advani's Kabir Singh created quite a stir upon its release in 2019. While the film catapulted the actress to a different league, it also got her criticism for accepting the role of Preeti. The Sandeep Reddy Vanga directorial was slammed for being misogynistic and glorifying violence like slapping a girl. Now, in her latest interview with Femina, Kiara addressed the hullabaloo around Kabir Singh.

Kiara, who is among the current leading ladies in Tinsel Town, defended her character, Preeti, and said she will never play a role she dislikes. I have never played a character I didn't like. If I don't like my character, I better not be doing the movie. We need to accept that there are all sorts of people. We can't cancel everyone," Kiara shared.

She further said Kabir Singh started a conversation and that's what matters. "If Kabir Singh didn't start a conversation, that would be problematic. But it did, and that's a great thing. What we can do is grow from it. That is what matters," she shared.

Back in 2020, Sandeep faced flak for glorifying an alcoholic and abusive character's actions as love. In an interview with Deccan Chronicle, the director said, "When you are deeply connected with a woman or vice versa, there is a lot of honesty in it. If you don't have that physical demonstration of...if you don't have that liberty of slapping each other, then I don't see anything there."

He further said in the interview, "I had to say what I had to say. And then they cut out portions of my comments so that people don't know what I said before and after some of the comments that have created a controversy. The content was edited in a very wrong way so that a section of women got another chance to attack me. But, I was trying to explain my protagonist's mindset. How Arjun Reddy/Kabir Singh feels is not exactly what I feel. Violence may be his way of expressing love. It's not mine."

Sandeep's idea that 'violence may be a way to express love' was being criticised. Soon after the film's release, Shahid defended it saying, "If Kabir hadn't slapped Preeti (Kiara Advani's character), would everything else that he did be okay? Because he slapped the girl, you feel that is unacceptable and that Kabir Singh is an unacceptable character. We want you to feel this is unacceptable, his behaviour has gone beyond control. He continued, "Kabir Singh is the guy who the film is about and he is the guy who's the problem" - the "protagonist" and "antagonist" of the movie.

He concluded his statement by saying, "I didn't want to come out attacking anybody. I didn't want to come out defending a film. I wanted to speak about a film like a film should be spoken about. It's interesting to see people, who make weekend conversation over it, seem to feel so much more of a sense of ownership on the film than those people who actually spent a year making it."