Bollywood actress and talk show host Neha Dhupia, who’s been an advocate for gender parity in the film industry, has revealed in a new interview that she was fired from several projects in the past after producers realised she was pregnant.
The mother of two, who stars as a pregnant cop in ‘A Thursday’, also added that the she was grateful to the makers of the Disney Hotstar production who rewrote her role to accommodate her growing baby bump while she was carrying her second child Guriq Singh Dhupia Bedi.
During a recent interview with India dot com, spoke at length about how producers were hesitant to take her on when she was carrying her first child Mehr Dhupia Bedi.
“During Mehr’s time, I had to create work. I did my own podcasts and other non-fiction television shows. I was being myself because being pregnant wasn’t a problem at all. I always worked right to the end. But the industry changes,” Dhupia revealed. “Before I announced my pregnancy, I was a part of a few projects. Did I get fired from those projects? Yes, I did. Was anything wrong with it? The physicality changes and then you don’t want to play the character or the people who hired you don’t want you to look like that… so be it!”
Dhupia also revealed how she bagged the role in Behzad Khambata’s directorial ‘A Thursday’. “I kind of lost all projects amidst the second wave (of COVID-19). This was literally my last try. I went into the meeting and told them that ‘I am five months pregnant. What do you want to do? Do you want to continue or replace me? It’s your choice and your film.’ It was a bunch of boys making the film and it didn’t take him a minute to say ‘we don’t want to replace you.”
Khambata’s team reworked her character for the thriller, also starring Yami Gautam, to factor in Dhupia’s pregnancy.
Dhupia also spoke about how she wanted to bring a positive change in the industry, adding: “I can’t use every stage to talk about empowering women if I can’t lead by example.”
