Actress Surveen Chawla recently opened up about her struggles with the casting couch. The popular television star, who was also a part of Netflix original Sacred Games, claimed that filmmakers wanted to see her thighs and cleavage.
“A director wanted to see how my cleavage looked. Another director wanted to see how my thighs looked. I went to give this audition and the person told me, ‘You are overweight’. I was just 56 kilos and I thought the person needed to get his eyes checked,” she reportedly said, while talking to a leading media organisation.
She also opened up about her experience down South. She said, “Then came south and that was my biggest blow. I faced casting couch thrice. There was a time I was told to accompany a film director for a recce and I was told ‘I want to know every inch of your body’. I just started ignoring calls from then on. This was another ridiculously big director down south, a National Award-winning director. I had a very long audition there, it almost lasted a shift. I had to do various things - a monologue or saying something impromptu. I was unwell and I returned after the audition. Then the director suddenly offered to come to Mumbai as I was unwell. I found it very creepy and said ‘no, thank you’.”
She minced no words when talking about the situation. “On the same phone call, in which I was not speaking to the director as he could only speak Tamil and no English or Hindi. He spoke to me through someone, maybe a friend. That person told me on the phone that ‘sir needs to know you, he needs to understand you as this film will take a long time to make’. And then he jumped to ‘only till the film and then you can stop’. I very innocently asked him ‘stop what’. So, he said ‘just till the film this will go on; then you can stop’. I still remember my words. I told him that you are knocking on the wrong door. If sir thinks I am talented then I am still willing to work in his film but I cannot barter myself. And that film also didn’t happen,” she reportedly said.
Surveen, who made her debut in the television industry with Ekta Kapoor’s Kahiin To Hoga, was last seen in Sacred Games. She also recently became a mother to a baby girl. The star often shares adorable pictures with her kid on social media.