Actor Celina Jaitly has been away from the mainstream cinema for a long time now. She has been associated with various social causes and has been a vocal supporter of the LGBTQ community in India. As the debate around nepotism and favouritim in the film industry rages on, Celina, too, has her experience to share. In her latest interview with Hindustan Times, the former Miss India talked about how she was written-off and why nepotism is a big problem. Celina said that the issue is about a lack of opportunities in the industry because whatever constructive roles and films are made, they are given to the star-kids or people with contacts.
Celina took her own example and mentioned that she decided to not be a mannequin anymore in the movies and switched herself to do other fruitful things that made her feel better. The actor said that there are two options that most outsiders are left with after struggling for years in the industry – either continue and keep facing the harassment or look out for more avenues to get creative satisfaction in life. Celina said she chose the second option.
The No Entry actor was quoted saying, “That is the reason why I left cinema. You can only try that hard to convince people to cast you. Most of the meaty parts, good roles and good films are reserved for people who have privileges, who either belong to a camp or come from a film family. When you are an outsider, you can try to push and do your best, but then comes a certain limit when you can’t do that anymore. So you have a choice to succumb to the bullying of people and not getting the right offers until you start believing that you are a failure. Or you move on in life and do other things. You recharge, rejuvenate, regenerate and come back again.”
The actor also revealed that you are deemed arrogant if you ask a filmmaker for a script before taking up the offer, especially women. “If you want a script, people have a problem giving you the script. They say, ‘apne aap ko bahut bada actor samajhti hai (she considers herself to be a big actor). I started facing it after the first few years of my career because no actor has a success graph which goes all the way up, especially us women,” said Celina.
The actor, like other outsiders, complained about how the star-kids keep on getting film offers even after delivering back-to-back flops at the Box Office. She said for those who don’t belong to a film family, a lot depends on how your first movie has fared for you to survive in the industry but for the star-kids, the rules are changed.
Celina added that for women, the struggle is even graver because they are anyway expected to be a prop on-screen where they can make a scene look good. “You have the option of doing cinema where you are just a prop. I didn’t want to continue being a prop, there is a lot more to me as a performer. If I am required to be a mannequin or a prop as a performer, I am happy to do that but if you just want to make sure that your screen looks good then I don’t want to do that anymore. Everything was all glitz and glam, but few films down the line, I realized that I don’t want to be a mannequin on screen anymore.”
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