I LOST PROJECTS FOR NOT GIVING IN: TISCA CHOPRA

Actor Tisca Chopra prefers not taking names, as she doesn’t want her story to turn into entertainment

In the wake of the #metoo movement, an old video of actor Tisca Chopra, where she spoke about her personal experience in the industry, has gone viral. In the video, the actor is speaking about how a filmmaker had propositioned her, someone she does not want to name.

Well, this is not the first time that she had faced such a situation. “There have been incidents when people have tried to make me feel that ‘you are not fitting in to the groups’ because I was not giving into their demands. And each time, I used [my] sense of humour as a tool,” says Tisca, adding that she had to pay a price for it.

“Due to this, I was thrown out of projects, but not any more! Once you are successful, people assume that now you have power,” she adds.

Reportedly, the man in question in her video is filmmaker Rakesh Roshan. Given the current wave of #MeToo, would she now want to name and shame the wrong doers? “It’s too much in the past. [But], I’d like to very much say that we know who they are… Such things happen everywhere, but the entertainment industry is always in focus because of the entertainment quotient. That’s the reason I don’t want to take [any] name... I don’t want it to become entertaining,” says Tisca.

The actor feels that it’s about time that predators get scared. “When I entered films, it was really bad for women, not just in terms of how they were exploited but also how they were portrayed. Women were simply flower pots or used for the sake of adding sizzle and oomph, as if being sex object is the only relevance they have in the life of a man. From there we have moved forward in support of the #metoo movement. The mentality of bullying girls who are sharing true stories must end,” concludes Tisca.

PHOTO: VIRAL BHAYANI Actor Tisca Chopra is happy that the film industry is moving away from the time when women were only ‘used to add oomph’