Are actors promoting films, or are films increasingly becoming vehicles for promoting the actor’s public persona?

Promotional interviews were once largely ancillary to a film’s publicity campaign. Today, they have acquired an entertainment value of their own. That also means, the actor’s personality, their politics, eccentricities, candour, humour, opinions and even their awkwardness can sometimes become more clickable than the film they have come to promote.

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During the promotional interview for Aasha, Urvashi took exception to the anchor slipping into English and mocked her in full public view at a mall in Kerala. Her reasoning that the audience was predominantly Malayalee felt less like a principled defence of Malayalam than an appeal to the gallery, particularly given an audience that already displays a baffling derision towards the English language. Predictably, the reel went viral, and the promotion soon spiralled into a larger social media conversation about language, cultural bias and all the attendant shenanigans.

What was perhaps more revealing was how most of these interviews eventually became Urvashi spectacles, with anchors fawning over the actor, revisiting her filmography and inviting anecdotes from a long and celebrated career. Perhaps that is also the point. When audiences already know and respond to an “Urvashi”, reproducing that recognizable persona is itself part of........

© Mathrubhumi English