With each passing day, The Kerala Story is becoming strong at the box office. The film is inching close to Rs 150 crore mark and has also surpassed Salman Khan’s recently released Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan. However, The Kerala Story’s lead actress Adah Sharma never expected the movie to perform this well at the box office. In an exclusive interview with News18 Showsha, Adah confessed she never thought that “crores of people” would watch her movie.
“As an actor, I don’t know all these figures. We do all this hoping people watch it. I knew that this was a subject that if people would watch, they would connect emotionally with it. That mother-daughter emotion is really strong in the film. That is what touched me when I heard the script. It is a haunting thing. It is scary. I thought that if the mother-daughter connects (with the audience), it will really work. But I didn’t expect this. I didn’t expect so many crores of people to watch it,” she told us.
Adah further revealed that even The Kerala Story’s global release was never part of the plan. She shared that a decision regarding the same was taken after the film received an overwhelming response in India. Adah claimed that after the India release, distributors from several countries including Denmark and Sweden contacted the makers and that’s when it was decided that The Kerala Story would release in 37 countries.
“It was definitely not a plan in the beginning. As you know, it is not a big-budget movie. That (global release) was not the plan. After it released in India, a lot of people were expressing their views and were writing about it. Abroad, this ISIS bride is a situation that everyone addresses and speaks about very openly. There are a lot of activists talking about it. Everyone knows that it exists and therefore, they want to get terrorism out. When they got to know what the subject is, we got calls from Denmark, Sweden, Ireland and Korea. So many places showed interest to release the film,” Adah said.
From collecting Rs 8.05 crore on its opening day to recording a massive Rs 23.75 crore collection on its second Sunday; Adah Sharma mentioned that the film has proved that word-of-mouth is the best promotion for a good movie. She further slammed those who are calling her film ‘propaganda’ and sent out a strong message for all by saying, ‘terrorism is real’.
“They cannot say it is some political party agenda. They cannot bring in elections also now because all of this is over and the film is doing even better now than it was before. They cannot call it propaganda because people from abroad are also saying that such things actually exist. People are putting out actual testimonials. I think we are now getting love from people because everything is available in the public domain. People are showing so much support and love for our film because they can see that terrorism is real. I am really happy,” the 31-year-old actress said.
Adah further called The Kerala Story a ‘movement’ and wondered why some people have an issue with the film. She admitted that before the release, she was thinking if terror organisations will have a problem with her movie. “Once people have watched the movie, then nobody has had a problem. They can see that it is only about terrorism. I don’t know why some people have a problem with it in the first place. In the first line of the trailer, there is a man who says in English, ‘please tell me how you joined ISIS’ and in Hindi, I replied, ‘ISIS kab join kiya yeh jaane ke liye, kyu aur kaise join kiya, yeh jaana zaroori hai’. We had made our stance. I had asked if terror organisations are going to have a problem because we openly saying ISIS. I didn’t know people will have a problem with it. I thought people will be like, ‘wow, it is an anti-terrorism film’, ‘we should all watch it’,” she shared.
A section of the audience is not only calling The Kerala Story ‘propaganda’ movie but is also sending threat messages to the cast and crew members. Last week, the film’s director, Sudipto Sen informed police that one of the crew members received a threatening message which read, “They did not do a good thing by showing the story.”
The situation is a little different for Adah. She shared how even a single hate message around her film is now flooded with replies from people supporting the movie. Adah also questioned those spreading hate on social media regarding The Kerala Story and wondered if they are paid to say such things.
“Even one negative comment has so many people supporting me under it. But also, have you seen the movie and then are you saying things? No. Without watching the film people are saying certain things. Maybe it is because they have their own political agenda or they want to connect it with the propaganda of their own or are paid to say it, or maybe they have their own propaganda and that’s why they are compelled to say things. But I think everyone should have his/her opinion… I am totally against terrorism and hence, I stand with the movie which is against terrorism,” Adah concluded.
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