Kalki Koechlin

Kalki Koechlin

Kalki Koechlin was born in Pondicherry, India, to French parents. She studied drama at Goldsmiths, University of London, and worked with a local theatre company. She made her screen debut as Chanda in the drama Dev. D in 2009, and won a Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 2011, she expanded her career into screenwriting with the crime thriller That Girl in Yellow Boots, in which she also played the lead role.

About Kalki Koechlin in brief

Summary Kalki KoechlinKalki Koechlin was born in Pondicherry, India, to French parents. She studied drama at Goldsmiths, University of London, and worked with a local theatre company. She made her screen debut as Chanda in the drama Dev. D in 2009, and won a Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress. Subsequently, she starred in two of the highest-grossing films of their respective release years–the comedy dramas Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani. In 2011, she expanded her career into screenwriting with the crime thriller That Girl in Yellow Boots, in which she also played the lead role. She drew particular praise for her portrayal of a lonely socialite in Prime Video’s Made in Heaven and a self-styled godwoman in Netflix’s Sacred Games. She co-wrote the drama Skeleton Woman, which won her The MetroPlus Playwright Award, and made her directorial debut on stage with the tragicomedy Living Room. She is also an activist and promotes various causes ranging from health and education to women empowerment and gender equality. Her father is a French structural engineer who played an important role in the design and construction of the Eiffel Tower. She has a half-brother from her mother’s previous marriage, and a half brother from her father’s subsequent marriage. Her mother and father divorced when she was fifteen; her father moved to Bangalore and remarried, while KoeChlin continued living with her mother.

She worked for two years with the theatre company Theatre of Marivaux’s The Rise of the Wild Hunt and performed in plays such as David Hare’s The Blue Hare Hunt and The Dispute Room on weekends. After moving to Mumbai, she auditioned for Anurag Kashyap’s Devapali Dhyapali, a modern-day adaptation of Chandra Chandra’s Saradhyay’s 1917 novel, and was held in Liverpool, to be held in a theatre company called Contacting World. She moved to London and studied drama and theatre at Gold Smiths. Although a French citizen, she has lived most of her life in India. Her parents are devotees of Sri Aurobindo, and she spent a significant amount of her early childhood in Auroville. She was brought up in a strict environment in Ooty where she spoke English, Tamil, and French. She has admitted to being shy and quiet as a child, and has described the time that she spent at Kalatty between the ages of 5 and 8, before her parents’ divorce, as her \”happiest\”. She is a descendant of Maurice Koe chlin, a FrenchStructures engineer who helped design and build the E-Tower. She also has two half-siblings, a brother and a sister, who she lives with in Bangalore. She lives with her maternal grandmother in Bangalore, and her mother in Liverpool.