“Heroes get private chartered planes while we don’t even make as much money.” Raveena Tandon said it plainly in a two-part interview with Rediff, where she talked about Welcome To The Jungle and the state of her industry.
Tandon is in London and Scotland shooting an OTT series, and the film is her latest release. She said women now work in nearly every corner of Hindi cinema. “I’m very proud of our Hindi film industry where today, I see women making inroads into every field of expertise, even what were once male-dominated bastions,” she said. There are female directors, directors of photography and assistant directors, and women are heading channels and running production houses.
Pay is the exception. “While a male and female assistant director would get the same remuneration, heroines still get paid less than heroes,” she said. “Unfortunately, that discrimination still exists. But I’m sure, with time, even that will, slowly and steadily, even out.”
Screen roles show a smaller version of the same gap, in her telling. The writing is more defined these days and heroines have more agency, she said, “but the really funny lines still go to the heroes.” She is looking forward to the day when she can “really let my hair down as uninhibitedly as the boys.”
On the film
Directed by Ahmed Khan, Welcome To The Jungle carries an ensemble of 32 actors. Republic reported that it earned over ₹120 crore worldwide in under a week, including ₹81.50 crore in India after five days.
Tandon called the shoot “a crazy ride and a refreshing change” after a run of intense roles in recent films and web series. Filmmaking has changed since her 1990s comedies Andaz Apna Apna and Bade Miyan Chote Miyan, so she had to do a lot of unlearning. Co-stars including Suniel Shetty, Akshay Kumar, Arshad Warsi, Paresh Rawal, Johny Lever, Rajpal Yadav, Jacqueline Fernandez and Disha Patani made that easy, she said.
Her view of ensemble work is short: it is not about one-upmanship but “about timing and fitting in.”
Sources
- 'Heroes Get Private Chartered Planes While We…': Welcome To The Jungle Star Raveena Tandon's Honest Take On Pay Parity In Film Industry
- 'Heroines Still Get Paid Less Than Heroes'
