Tanisha Kuppanda on being asked about nude films: 'Wanted to hit back the person with my shoe'

The pre-release promotions of Guru Deshpande's Pentagon are marred with controversies. Not very long ago, when the film's first teaser featuring Kishore and Pruthvi Ambaar was released online, it drew the ire of Kannada activists who claimed that Pentagon intentionally defames them.

In fact, the film's own cast member and well-known activist Rupesh Rajanna ambushed the teaser launch event and confronted director & producer Guru Deshpande for antagonizing Kannada crusaders in the film.

Cut to a couple of weeks later, another kind of controversy now surrounds Pentagon. A few days ago, an interesting and equally appalling discussion erupted on the internet when some of the netizens found the new single from the film, 'Kaamanabillu', a bit too raunchy to handle. The actress featuring in it, Tanisha Kuppanda, has become the subject of the entire conversation and just as expected, she also had to battle a lot of misogynistic comments from all corners. The Kaamanabillu song might have released as many as 3 weeks ago but Tanisha continues to field unwarranted questions from the media, including the very well-meaning YouTubers.

But the last straw was broken when one such YouTuber scandalously asked her if she would be willing to go nude for a film. The question, reeking of bigotry, wasn't appreciated by Tanisha Kuppanda nor her team members from Pentagon and duly, the YouTuber was then made to apologize for the unsavoury query.

Speaking about the same at a recent press meet, Tanisha said, "The YouTuber in question has asked me multiple times about an interview but since I didn't like the way he came across, I kept stalling him. But I haven't shied away from discussing the "scene" in question and in fact, have explained clearly the technique behind shooting these sensitive portions are shot. And the same YouTuber was present during one such interview and when we had wrapped it up, he swooped in asking for a five-minute slot. I agreed but his agenda was quite clear from the beginning - 'you look bold in this film and all that'. Since everyone asked me the same thing, I obliged, but his question was rather direct - 'would you be willing to work in "nude" films'. I was looking at the ground at that point for some reason and the first thought that occurred to me was to hit with my shoe. But since he belonged to the media, I refrained out of respect".

Pentagon, the anthology, has been produced by Guru Deshpande who also serves as one of the five directors on the project. The other four are Kiran Kumar, Raghu Shivamogga, Akash Srivatsa and Chandra Mohan. The film releases in theatres on April 7.