‘Hate the term female-led projects from my gut!’ : Bhumi Pednekar

Bollywood star Bhumi Pednekar is regarded as one of the most talented actors in Indian cinema today. Through her brand of cinema, Bhumi has projected remarkably forward-thinking women of India who are ambitious, conscious of their rights, independent, woke and free-thinking. Bhumi hates the term ‘female-led projects’ that is used to label content which are headlined by women actors in our country because no one uses the term ‘men-led projects’ to describe otherwise.

Bhumi says, “There is a misconception that people are not immediately drawn to watch films or content headlined by women. Such projects are immediately bracketed as ‘female-led projects’. This is an annoying term and I hate it from my gut. Gender doesn’t define people’s watching preference. Audience wants to see good cinema, good content. They aren’t choosing to watch it basis gender. It’s ridiculous.”

Bhumi adds, “If that was the case, I wouldn’t have survived and I have built a career out of essaying remarkably strong women on screen! I got lucky because I started working at a time that coincided with how women characters were being written for cinema. There were author backed roles written for me. I was fortunate that directors liked my performances and chose me to headline in some of these incredibly beautiful projects that showed women as agents of change.”

Bhumi further says, “My last hit Bhakshak was about a woman’s willpower to fight the system for social good and it went on to become a huge hit globally. So audiences saw a female actor headline a subject that took on patriarchy and showed it in all its ugliness. Such a project should have never become a hit if audience were selecting to watch male-actor driven projects.”

Bhumi wants film-makers to take the punt and produce more and more projects with the same budget and scale that male actors get in our country.

She says, “Toilet: Ek Prem Katha, Lust Stories, Dum Laga Ke Haisha, Saand Ki Aankh, Bala, Pati Patni Aur Woh are all films that had women driving the story and they are all successful projects. So, I feel it’s high time we discard all misconceptions and back projects led by women and give it the scale and mounting that we truly deserve.”