When Surveen Chawla spoke about her horrific casting couch experience, read details

Casting couch is something which has been happening behind the scenes and it is not at all a new concept rather it is as old as our civilization. People started noticing it very recently. Several actresses have been a victim of harassment in the Film Industry as well.

The casting couch is a practice of asking for sexual favours from a job applicant in exchange for a job in the entertainment industry, especially acting roles. The casting couch originally referred to physical couches in the casting office. This practice is termed illegal in the United States.

Male casting directors, as well as, film producers use the casting couch in a bid to extract sex from ambitious actresses in Hollywood, Bollywood and other segments of the cinema industry.

Several actresses in the Indian film industry have been a victim of sexual harassment. Time and again, actresses have spoken up against the casting couch and harassment. Previously, the #MeToo movement hit the headlines which exposed some popular names from several professional fields across the country.

When Surveen Chawla spoke about her horrific casting couch experience

During an interview with PinkVilla in 2019, she spoke casting couch, “Then came south and that was my biggest blow. I faced casting couch thrice. There was a time I was told to accompany a film director for a recce and I was told ‘I want to know every inch of your body’. I just started ignoring calls from then on.”

She added, “This was another ridiculously big director down south, a National Award-winning director. I had a very long audition there, it almost lasted a shift. I had to do various things – a monologue or saying something impromptu. I was unwell and I returned after the audition. Then the director suddenly offered to come to Mumbai as I was unwell. I found it very creepy and said ‘no, thank you’. On the same phone call, in which I was not speaking to the director as he could only speak Tamil and no English or Hindi.

He spoke to me through someone, maybe a friend. That person told me on the phone that ‘sir needs to know you, he needs to understand you as this film will take a long time to make’. And then he jumped to ‘only till the film and then you can stop’. I very innocently asked him ‘stop what’. So, he said ‘just till the film this will go on; then you can stop’. I still remember my words. I told him that you are knocking on the wrong door. If sir thinks I am talented then I am still willing to work in his film but I cannot barter myself. And that film also didn’t happen.”

Meanwhile, she also talked about casting couch experiences in the Hindi film industry. She added, “It happened quite recently, last to last year. I had to barge out of an office because of someone trying to insinuate an act and I will never do that,” she went on to add, “One filmmaker wanted to see how my cleavage looks and one filmmaker wants to see how my thighs looked. This kind of stuff happens.”