Actor Raveena Tandon, who has often spoken about the limitations that female stars were impacted by in the 1990s, recalled turning down movies in the past because she didn’t appreciate the lens through which her character would be presented. The actor is well known for appearing some of the most enduring dance numbers of the era, but said in a new interview that she put her foot down when she was offered a role that would require her to look like a ‘Playboy Bunny’.
Speaking to Barkha Dutt on Mojo Story, Raveena also recalled walking out of a project because a director disrespected her intelligence. She said, “I remember there was a film I did where the child was supposed to be in a coma, and the mother walks in, and the child is supposed to look at me and say, ‘Mumma, mumma, mumma’. So my question was, the nurse comes to me just before this scene and says ‘aapka bachcha coma mein hai’, then how in the world is he crying out for his mother?”
She raised this concern with the director, who turned defensive. “He told me, ‘You don’t teach me how to direct’. I said, ‘Sir, but it’s a scientific fact, we can’t go wrong, people will laugh at us’. Because my neck is on the line as well. Ultimately, actors bear the brunt of the criticism. But there’s a limit to what you can suggest as an actor. The director walked off the set, and I said, ‘Okay fine, then I’m not doing the film’.”
Also read – Raveena Tandon addresses suicide rumours that followed her broken engagement with Akshay Kumar, adopting two girls in its aftermath
Raveena said that there is no role or song that she has done in the past that she regrets. “I very proudly stand by everything that I’ve done, because things that made me uncomfortable, I definitely did not do… Most of the time, I have stayed away from doing things that I principally didn’t agree with,” she said. This included rejecting a film on the basis of its costumes. She said, “I didn’t do kissing scenes, but I also didn’t do movies if the costumes I was not comfortable with. I left big movies with big stars if I wasn’t comfortable with the costumes.” She explained, “There was a film that I had with a very, very big star, that I regret, because I really wanted to work with him, he was my favourite. But unfortunately, it had those pom-poms right here, like a Playboy Bunny, which to me was objectifying women.”
Raveena transitioned to solo leads in recent years, and was most recently seen in the film Patna Shuklla. Before that, she starred in the Disney+ Hotstar show Karmma Calling, and before that in the Netflix series Aranyak.
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