Casting couch happens a lot in south film industry: Surveen Chawla

Bollywood actress Surveen Chawla, who will be seen playing actor Madhavan’s wife in the upcoming Netflix series, Decoupled, opened up again about facing the casting couch and body shaming at work.

Two years ago, in a media interview, she had admitted to being propositioned by a south Indian director, who had wanted to know “every inch of her body”. While another “ridiculously big” national award-winning director down south had also wanted to “know her” only till the film was completed. She had also faced this kind of experience in Bollywood too and had to barge out of a filmmaker’s office in disgust. This kind of stuff happens, she had told Pinkvilla at that time.

In a recent chat with RJ Siddharth Kannan, Chawla, who shot to fame after playing the bitter, tough-talking madam, Jojo Mascarenhas in web series Sacred Games, and is currently promoting her web series with R Madhavan, said that people in the film industry tend to push you into “this space where you question yourself”.

She recalled that when she was trying to make the transition from television to films, she had this experience in her first film meeting in Mumbai, where she was judged on the basis of her  ‘appearance, weight and waist size, chest size’. Chawla pointed out that these are not the right parameters that should define a woman.

Chawla revealed that the casting couch happened a lot in the south Indian film industry, but the situation has changed over the past few years. It was a difficult phase earlier, but things are changing with things like body shaming, mental health and rejections being talked about, she added.

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Chawla had made her acting debut with television soap opera Kahin To Hoga in 2003 and did many TV serials like Kasautii Zindagi Kay, Kaajjal and 24. However, she entered films only in 2008, when she bagged a role in Kannada movie Paramesha Panwala. Later, she was signed up for Hum Tum Shabana, Ugly, Hate Story 2, Parched and short film Chhuri, apart from several Punjabi movies.

However, her career took off after she appeared in Sacred Games (2019) and web show Haq Se. On being asked why she had kept her marriage under wraps for two years, and whether being married affected a woman’s chances in the film industry, Chawla replied that the primary reason was because her husband is media shy. The decision not to reveal her marital status was arrived at mutually between her husband and her, she said. Moreover, she had got married in 2015 and revealed it in 2017.

Surveen added that she however evolved because from that experience, something inside her changed, and her mental health got better. She said those two years taught her “to give a damn.”