‘Bollywood doesn’t have roles for female actors after 30’

Actor Shefali Shah believes the film industry struggles to give roles to women after they hit a certain age.

Asked whether roles start drying up for female actors after they get married, Shah said the discrepancy is wider than that.

“It is not just after they get married but even after a certain age, they don’t know what to do with female actors. So, either you are 18, a 22-yearold heroine or a mother of a 30year-old. They don’t know what to do with actors in between that, which is very sad, she said.”

“I don’t think it has to do anything with marriage or role-playing. I think it is a much bigger and wider discrepancy,” she said.

The Satya actor, however, feels things have started to change on a small level.

She said, “There are fantastic roles being written. I have to admit that times are changing. There are roles for Vidya Balan, there is a Lipstick Under My Burkha and a Pink. The womenoriented films are not not exactly in their 20s.”

Shah was recently seen at the launch of her latest short film Juice. The 14-minute film is the story of Manju Singh (Shah) and her husband, who are hosting a get-together of families. Between the snacks and the laughs, something completely unexpected happens.

Directed by Neeraj Ghaywan of the Masaan fame , the short film takes on patriarchy and how a woman has the right to make her own space in the male-dominated world.

Ghaywan said, “Our female actors are now experimenting a lot more than the male actors. You can clearly see the difference between what the top three female stars are doing .... Male stars still have to cater to that massy tag of being a superstar. So, there’s a difference.”

It is not just after they get married but even after a certain age, they don’t know what to do with actresses. Either you are 18, a 22 or a mother at 30 SHEFALI SHAH, ACTOR