Last year’s blockbuster, Kabir Singh surely changed the course of her career. Since then, Kiara Advani has been on a roll with several big-ticket films and another major hit under her belt. But even now, the actor gets questioned about the Shahid Kapoor-starrer and her ‘submissive, weak’ character in it even as a section of people felt that the film endorsed toxic masculinity. Kiara, on her part, is clear that she “didn’t look at him as a hero in any manner”.

“He was a flawed person with lots of issues. Plus, for me, it is purely a film and a fictional account. More than anything, it’s just a story between two people,” says Kiara. “In hindsight, I also feel that the film was eventually loved so much because we got really immersed in it while watching, and since everyone got so much into it, we turned them into mortal beings and debated on it as if they really existed. But at the end of the day, they are just two characters with their own journey,” she says.

Talking of Kabir Singh, the young actor says she had an “unbelievable” experience in Chandigarh. “There’s no denying that Kabir Singh has been a big breakthrough [for me] and I think I realised it only recently, when I, along with Akshay sir, went to launch the song, Chandigarh in Chandigarh. For the event, around 8,000 people turned up from the Chandigarh University. They had turned it into a concert of sorts. And when both of us went on stage, 8,000 boys and girls started chanting, ‘Preeti, Preeti’, and for the first time I felt, ‘I know that Kabir Singh could be a fabulous movie and it’s done what it has done, and has got a lot of love too but this kind of experience will always be a special feeling,’” she says.