“He tried to grab me” – Rutuja Sawant reveals her dreadful casting couch experience

Rutuja Sawant was born on September 15, 2000 in Mumbai, Maharashtra. The 22-year-old actress is known for featuring in Bollywood movies such as Ek Villain Returns (2022), S5 (2022) and Mehndi Hai Rachne Waali (2021). In fact, she also featured in a Indian Hindi language romantic drama television series by the name of ‘Choti Saardarrni’. drew plaudits for her acting abilties and her best is yet to come.

The young actress has all the tools and ingredients to become one of the successful actresses in Bollywood provided if she is given more opportunities to showcase her abilities. Meanwhile, the young actress revealed her dreadful casting couch experience.

‘Pishachini’ actress opened on how she once experienced casting couch in the initial years of her career and labelled it one of the scariest incidents of her life.

"He tried to grab me" - Rutuja Sawant reveals her dreadful casting couch experience

Speaking on the same lines she said, “It’s an ordinary thing for a struggling actor to audition a lot, so at the age of 20 when I was looking for work, one day I got a call from an agent who asked me to come to his office for a meeting. The agent, instead of discussing the work, tried to get close to me and grab me. I got so scared that I ran away from that place.”

She further added, “That incident gave me a lesson to be more careful when I meet people whom I don’t know. I stopped going to any meetings alone after that incident, I always used to take a friend along to meetings. Even today, I usually cross-check the details of the person I am going to meet regarding work.”

“Unfortunately, many new actors had to face such bad experiences and newcomers easily fell victim to it. But I believe that there are good and bad people everywhere, you just have to play safe and keep yourself a priority,” Rutuja concluded.

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.