The gorgeous Bollywood diva and flamboyant icon Sonam Kapoor Ahuja who currently has wraped working on her new movie ‘Blind’ in Scotland has been away from the media for quite a while now. Directed by Shome Makhija, the film also features Vinay Pathak, Purab Kohli and Lilette Dubey in pivotal roles. It has been produced by Sujoy Ghosh, Avishek Ghosh, Manisha W, Pinkesh Nahar, Sachin Nahar and Hyunwoo Thomas Kim. The actress took to Instagram story to share a photo of herself showing her bruises she got while shooting Blind. Sonam wrote, “Bruised and battered but raring to finish the last day of this insanely hard but creatively satisfying film @shomemak.” During the filming in Scotland, Sonam had shared several photos and videos from the sets while prepping to play a blind cop. Her photos with director Shome Makhija also gave fans a glimpse into the effort that was put into filming the movie amid the pandemic. A guide dog also joined Sonam in the film and the actress had shared photos of it on her social media handle while the shoot was on in Scotland.
In an interview with Mid-Day, the actor said, “The pay gap is ridiculous. I can stand up to it, but then I don’t get those roles, and I’m okay with that. I can afford to do that. I realised over the past two or three years that I have no right to judge anybody. I’m privileged, so making difficult choices isn’t really f**king difficult.”
Her comments come shortly after actor Taapsee Pannu said the male actors who started their careers with her make 3-5 times more money than her. Speaking to The National Bulletin, Taapsee said, “If a female actor asks more, she is termed difficult and problematic and if a man asks more it’s a mark of his success. Difference is, the men who started with me earn 3-5 times more than what I do. And the gap keeps increasing as we go in higher star category.”
Pannu responded about the matter and her movie ‘Haseena Dilruba’ to filmmaker and municipal councillor Yasmin Kidwai’s tweet commenting about the film’s depiction of ‘toxic masculine love’, and ‘a woman needing to prove herself in the kitchen while being denied any rights for herself’. The actor wrote, “If we want films to not reflect the society we live in and constantly present what is the ideal world to be in then I think we should stop raising voice against all those powers too that suppress the voice of cinema when reality is projected.”
When a journalist pointed out to Taapsee that ‘showing toxicity and propagating it are two different things’, the actor wrote that the journalist has a ‘biased lens’ and didn’t ‘remotely’ understand the character, Rani.
Taapsee had also defended Kareena Kapoor, who was criticised online after she reportedly hiked her fee to play the titular role in an ambitious project, described as a reimagining of the Ramayana from Sita’s perspective. She told Bollywood Bubble in an interview, “If it would have been a man in that position, who would have asked for a particular amount, it would have been looked upon like, ‘iski market badh gayi hai (his worth has improved)’. Like that guy has really achieved big success in life. But because a woman is asking for it, she’s called ‘difficult’, ‘too demanding’. It’s always like that.”
