Radhika Apte: A Role-Model For Her Contemporaries

She doesn’t want to rush to the monitor to see how she’s looking, she doesn’t want to be a star... Happy being an actress, an individual, Radhika Apte is becoming a role-model for her contemporaries, writes Shubarna Mukerji Shu.

- Shubarna Mukerji Shu

As an Indian actress, I have always just wanted to hone my craft. I cannot be a star...

I won’t be happy with the trappings.... When I hear about the gruelling schedule stars of today keep, I don’t think it is for me. They say Bollywood actresses have to be beautiful, they need to sing and dance, but I do think that’s changing. As an Indian actress, even in Bollywood I haven’t done the song-and-dance routine - if I did, it was imperative. One cannot really say Indian actresses have it more difficult than others; it is not like that... Anyone from outside the film industry trying to make it here has it objectified more than men, you might not have the whole truth there. It is a fact that if a girl is expected to look a certain way onscreen, guys too have the pressure of looking a certain way onscreen. If you think that girls alone are subjected to the casting couch, you will be surprised to know that’s not true either.

If you ask me to talk about things I am proud of as a woman...

I will have to pass the question because I don’t see people for their gender. I am someone who thoroughly believes in equality, for that reason if I start trying to think about things that make me proud of my femininity, I would not know what to say.... I don’t see myself as a woman, I see myself as a human being. I find it extremely difficult to accept when people ask me things like ‘How was it working with a female director?’ That in itself is a gender bias, the fact that the question exists in the first place!

The two women in my life who have really inspired me...