As anticipation builds for ‘Toxic: A Fairy Tale For Grown-Ups’, lead actress Kiara Advani has shared what filming the Yash-starrer was really like. The actress revealed that director Geetu Mohandas had a strict no-pleasantries rule on set and that shooting in Kannada for the first time pushed her well outside her comfort zone.
Kiara Advani reveal’s Geetu Mohandas’ ‘no hi, hello’ rule on set
In an interview with Bombay Times, Kiara Advani, known for her warm and chatty presence on film sets, said that the director asked her to drop her usual greetings entirely in order to stay locked into her character’s headspace.She said, “Geetu is like, okay, tomorrow when you come on set, I want you to be, and I’m a person; when I walk on set, I’m always like, ‘Hi, what’s up? Good morning.’ I’m that person. And she’s like, ‘I don’t want pleasantries; I want you to come in that zone, no hi, hello, not your team, nobody, just be in a zone today’.”
Kiara Advani talks about shooting in Kannada for the first time
Kiara Advani also described the bilingual shoot as one of the most challenging experiences of her career, particularly because she had to perform every scene twice — once in English and once in Kannada.She said, “Working in Kannada, I think I would say ‘Toxic’ has been challenging because it’s for the first time that we shot in both English and Kannada. We would do the same scene. So this shot was an English shot first till we got the take right. Then we do the Kannada take, because you’re, at least for someone like me, Kannada not being my language, mugging up my dialogues literally the night before.”Though shot in English and Kannada, Toxic will release in several languages, including Hindi.
Kiara Advani talks about language differences
Despite the linguistic stretch, Kiara said the experience of working in the Kannada film industry was not drastically different from Hindi or Telugu productions.She added, “I think eventually there may be slight cultural differences, but I feel eventually at the core we’re all Indians, so there’s a similarity; there’s a familiarity. Even the style of working sometimes, the bigger the stars and backup, which is great over there. But apart from that, I feel I’ve had a fairly similar experience with working in Hindi and in Telugu language.”
More about ‘Toxic: A Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups’
‘Toxic’ features an ensemble cast including Yash, Nayanthara, Huma Qureshi, Rukmini Vasanth, and Tara Sutaria. The film was originally scheduled for a June 4, 2026 release but has since been postponed. A new release date is yet to be announced.
