Seema Pahwa opens up on stereotyping in Bollywood

Mumbai, Sep 28 (IANS) “Shubh Mangal Saavdhan” actress Seema Pahwa says actors are often finalised for roles based on appearance.”The best is that I was lucky enough to have worked in the industry for so long. The welcoming nature of the industry and the continuous work that I’ve done matters to me the most,” Seema said while talking about the best and worst parts of her journey as an actor. “But the worst part I feel that every actor faces — is the typical casting.

A lot of time, actors are finalised for a role as per their appearances,” she added. To this, her husband and actor Manoj Pahwa added: “Take me for example, I have been typecasted basis my appearance and physique. Thus, my skill to portray a variety of roles as an actor couldn’t be flourished initially. But there are phases when such things happen otherwise in my career span of 35 years, I was more than blessed to have done so much.”They opened up about their journey when they appeared on chat show “By Invite Only”, which airs on Zoom.

Talking about the trend of hiring team of publicists to manage an actor’s work, Manoj said: “It used to be a direct deal between the actor and the director earlier, we weren’t dependent on managers and PRs. What mattered to us was — ‘who is the director’. Coming from the theatre background, our mind-set was such and we have grown that way in our career.”Seema seconds her husband’s thoughts. “We never experienced dealing with a team of managers and PRs, it came very late in our carrier, we always focused to keep ourselves so prepared as actors that there is no room for insecurities,” she said.

–IANSsug/vnc