After Bollywood actor Sonu Sood announced that he was leaving from the biopic Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi, the lead actress of the movie, Kangana Ranaut has accused him of male chauvinism. And in a response to the actress' statement, Sonu has clarified that he decided to leave the project because of scheduling conflicts and not due to the "gender of the director".
On Friday, after the 45-year-old actor announced his exit from the historical drama, Kangana had said that he decided to quit the project because she was directing the reshoots and patchwork. "He vehemently denied to work under a woman director, which is kind of amusing because Sonu is a dear friend..." Kangana had reportedly said.
In his response, Sonu said, "Kangana is a dear friend and she will always remain one but this constant playing the woman card, the victim card and making this entire issue about male chauvinism is ridiculous."
"The gender of the director is not the issue, competence is. Let's not confuse the two. I've worked with Farah Khan who's a competent woman director and Farah and I had a great professional equation and we are still best of friends. That's all I would like to say," Sonu said in a statement.
It was earlier said that Sonu who was filming Rohit Shetty's Simmba right now, was recently asked to reshoot portions for Manikarnika. Sonu is apparently sporting a beard for the Ranveer Singh-starrer, but for Manikarnika, he was supposed to be clean shaven. The actor had asked the makers of the biopic to finish the reshoots after he completes his schedule for Simmba but things did not work out and he decided to quit the project.