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EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: Sarika, Neena Gupta on evolution of female characters in cinema and battling the star-system
Actress Neena Gupta adds she is grateful that television happened so she could do some work.
In a recent conversation with Pinkvilla, Uunchai actors Sarika and Neena Gupta open up on the evolution of female characters in cinema, and on battling through star-system in an earlier male-dominated industry. “I have many stories about it. ‘Beta khana kha le, beta ghar kab aayega. Shadi kar le.’ Yehi hota tha. And struggling actors like me used to be told things like, ‘There will be a song for you in the flashback’. This was the role. Lalach kya tha, ‘Flashback mein hero ke saath gaana hoga’. There was nothing else. Thank God TV happened, so I could do some work,” says Neena Gupta.
Sarika adds that the situation is much better today. “It’s not us fighting against male domination, it’s not like that. I think that whole system was so old, passé and quite silly you know the way… I am talking about the times before I took my first break. See the industry I have seen changing in three different times, but the first was like bad make-up, heavy make-up, everything was something else you know,” shares Sarika.
Sarika on evolution of cinema
She further adds, “But even then you had those films which stood out and were very good. I think one of my very important films in my career is Griha Pravesh, but then you had those kind of very few directors (Basu Bhattacharya). You feel so blessed to be a part of that trilogy. So those films were there, even then. But not that much, it is just later how cinema... you know at some point with great speed it changed. It went really bad, and then it started rising.”
Meanwhile, director Sooraj Barjatya’s Uunchai releases tomorrow with Amitabh Bachchan, Anupam Kher, Boman Irani, Danny Denzongpa, Parineeti Chopra, Neena Gupta, Sarika and Nafisa Ali Sodhi headlining the film.
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