Katrina Kaif lists the films that changed the trajectory of her career: Welcome, Namastey London, Singh Is King and others

Heaping praise on Raghavan, she said, “There’s a certain rawness and realness to the characters in his films when you watch them on screen. They’re very flawed, they’re very imperfect, but there’s like a tangible, humane quality about them. They feel very real, like I’ve seen this person or I know this person. He has a certain grip on having something relatable to what he depicts on screen, even though sometimes the situations are so outlandish, but yet the characters are so you can feel you can understand what they’re going through, and you relate to their emotions.”

Nevertheless, Merry Christmas isn’t the only film she’s proud of, and Katrina Kaif went on to list a few titles that changed the trajectory of her career. The list included Namastey London (2007), Welcome (2007), Singh Is King (2008), New York (2009), Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani (2009), Rajneeti (2010) and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011).

Watch Merry Christmas trailer here:

“I wouldn’t call them films, I would call them moments in my life. They were surrounded by an entire emotion, an entire feeling. It wasn’t just playing a character and going home, it seeped into my life at that time, the film would become my entire life. That film, that crew, that moment, that environment would become my whole life. I’d be consumed and then the film would release and there would be a moment of emptiness and loss. And then you would go on to the next one. These are all incredible moments for me as an actor, as a performer,” Katrina added.

She further recalled undergoing intense training under the late guru Veeru Krishnan, who was an exponent of the Kathak dance form, at the suggestion of filmmaker Dharmesh Darshan.

“Dance is one thing, but I feel like Kathak is about expression. It’s about a feeling, it’s about expressing yourself through music. And that, for me was my foundation for movies,” she said. “It was about understanding the emotion and the language of cinema. I was almost quiet, a little timid, very naive, I wasn’t sure of my identity in terms of what was my voice, my expression as a girl, as a woman. I was very young. So, I think that really helped me find my voice.”

“I’ve always put the audiences first and have tried to with my choices throughout my career. And now I think it’s about finding a balance, what story do I feel is going to connect with the audience? And what do I connect to personally and as an actor right now? What’s going to give me growth? What’s going to give me satisfaction? This is just exactly what I want to be doing right now,” the Tiger 3 actor added.