Kalki Koechlin: Celebrating Her Sexuality

Ms. Koechlin gets candid about life, sexuality and Maxim’s make her smile social campaign.

- Vivek Pareek

It’s great to have you back in Maxim. Your favourite part of the shoot was...

It’s good to be back. I loved the sensibility of the shoot, and the idea. We had a lot of fun. We did some crazy, stretchy and movement shots where you can really see the body’s lengths and shapes.

Your video, The Printing Machine, went viral. You could’ve given any meme a run for its money. What was the idea behind the video?

I actually wrote it long before I thought it would be a video. I wrote it first as a poem, and then started performing it live. I thought it had a really catchy rhythm and beat to it. Then, Culture Machine wanted to interview me for a series called “Unblush.” They’ve made really stylised videos with people like David Beckham and women doing out-there stuff. I really liked the way they shot their stuff : it’s really trendy, cool and, at the same time, it’s saying something important. They came to me and asked if I had any different ideas because they wanted to do something more personal with me. I asked them to go through my Spoken Word collection and this is the one they chose! So. I owe Culture Machine and Akanksha Seda, the director, a hell of a lot because she was the one who came up with the concept, the sound and the feel.

Despite being a men’s magazine, Maxim is often looked at as being feminist. How do you perceive us?

I’ve been completely comfortable with this shoot, because you guys came up with a very different concept from anything I’ve done before. I didn’t really have to do anything. The focus was not so much on the clothes or the fashion, but on the personality. That’s something that always stands out about Maxim.