Shruti doesn’t want to do any more films where the woman is irrelevant

Kavita Awaasthi

Shruti Haasan, who juggles Tamil and Telugu films along with Hindi, and has eight of the latter in her decade-old acting career, says she is in an “interesting phase”. “I’ve never played the mainstream Bollywood heroine. Though I did commercial projects like Welcome Back and Gabbar Is Back (both 2015), I have never focused 100% on Bollywood, which might have offended some people. Right now, I have my music career and the roles I got in south films were better, so I’ll wait for something really exciting to come my way,” she says, adding she has a music tour coming up.

Shruti’s next Hindi project is a short film, Devi, which costars Kajol among others and is about abuse, violence and gender discrimination. “When a film is about social awareness and consciousness, you want to make sure that it is presented in a sensible, sensitive and impactful way. We should be using these points not as a novelty but value the integrity of the issue itself, which are present in this film and that’s what drew me to it. Women should support each other, band and form a united front. It’s a subliminal message that this film focuses on, including disparity among women and women banding. It is about a disturbing reality for women in India and boldly goes there,” she shares. Shruti’s last project was the American action drama television series, Treadstone.

Of course, working with Kajol was fabulous she reveals. “Growing up, I have been the biggest fan of Kajol and she is such a brilliant performer, a fun and vivacious person. It was an amazing experience to watch her perform, see her professionalism and what she brings to the table as an actor,” she says.

Aware of the way women are projected in cinema, Shruti admits in the larger sense, “there are very few films that blatantly discuss female-oriented subjects”. And as female actors, in a general setup, she wouldn’t want the characters she plays to align with non-feminist ideals. She says, “You don’t want to promote certain things. So when I pick up films,

I try that within the larger narrative, my character’s voice is there for a reason. Of course, in the past, I have done films where the woman’s voice is completely irrelevant to the narrative. That is not something I want to continue to do, or enjoy doing now. Today, I pick up roles that are not in-your-face-feminist, but integral to the narrative and I ensure that my characters are sensitive and impactful.”

PHOTO: ALBERTO LINGRIA/ REUTERS