IMPORTANT TO GET FEMALE PERSPECTIVE RIGHT: SHWETA
With female-fronted content gaining prominence amid the OTT boom, actor Shweta Basu Prasad feels it is important to get the female perspective right in projects. And the filmmakers must be willing to make changes, wherever necessary.
“It all starts with the writing, it’s really important to understand both perspectives. For that, the directors need to be approachable and should be able to mix and work to just get the right perspective,” she tells us.
Citing example of her recent anthology, Ray, she says, “I told our director Srijit Mukherji that the climax was written from a male gaze or neutral gaze, and not from a female perspective. It was important for me as a woman to personalise it.”
Prasad, 30, was relieved when the director not only heard her inputs but also used them to alter the segment. “It’s so refreshing when you’ve a director like that,” she says.
The actor also notes there have been “fabulous filmmakers” in the country who’ve written “fantastic feminist films” in the past. “Starting from Bimal Roy’s Sujata (1959) to Satyajit Ray’s Devi (1960). It is fantastic how Ray explored women in his stories,” she says, adding, “I think Mirch Masala (1987) by Ketan Mehta (director) is so ahead of its time. It’s such a feminist film. I wish it was a movie from the OTT revolution”.
For the actor, it is important to find the right balance while defining a character. “Like the way Zoya Akhtar (filmmaker) looks at Ranveer Singh (actor) in Gully Boy (2019), or Farah Khan looks at Shah Rukh Khan (actor). There have been a lot of crosses that have happened where male directors have written fantastic female characters,” she concludes.
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