“Heroes get private chartered planes while we don’t even make as much money.” Raveena Tandon said that to Rediff, and she did not soften it.
The actress gave the two-part interview to Roshmila Bhattacharya while shooting an OTT series in London and Scotland. Rediff published it on June 30, 2026. Most of it looks back at her latest release, Welcome To The Jungle, but the pay question is the part that stuck.
Equal behind the camera, not in front of it
Asked whether the Hindi film industry has changed, Tandon started with pride. “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. Women now work as directors, as directors of photography and as assistant directors. Some head channels or run production houses.
Then came the exception. A male and a female assistant director draw the same pay, she said. Heroines, though, still earn less than heroes. “Unfortunately, that discrimination still exists,” Tandon told Rediff. She added that she expects it to even out “slowly and steadily”. She did not put figures on the gap.
A 32-actor comedy
Tandon described Welcome To The Jungle as a hero-driven mainstream comedy with an ensemble cast of 32 actors. Coming off a run of intense roles in recent films and web series, she called it “a crazy ride and a refreshing change.”
Filmmaking has moved on since her madcap 1990s comedies Andaz Apna Apna and Bade Miyan Chote Miyan, she said, and she had to do a lot of unlearning. The cast around her made that easy: Suniel Shetty, Akshay Kumar, Arshad Warsi, Paresh Rawal, Johny Lever, Rajpal Yadav, Jacqueline Fernandez and Disha Patani. She singled out director Ahmed Khan, who she said gave everyone from the most senior actor to the youngest their due respect. In her telling, nobody overstepped or questioned him.
Her view of how to make an ensemble work is plain: it is not one-upmanship, “it’s about timing and fitting in.”
The writing, she said, is sharper now and heroines have more agency. “But the really funny lines still go to the heroes.” Then she added a wish: “I’m looking forward to the day when I can really let my hair down as uninhibitedly as the boys.”
