Adah Sharma slams gender discrimination in film industry: ‘They first call the girl on set, tell her to wait for actor’

Adah Sharma has been in the news ever since her film The Kerala Story was released. It has become one of the highest-grossing Hindi films of the year. Adah, who has worked in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam film industries, recently opened up about facing discrimination during shoots on the basis of gender. Also read: Adah Sharma’s mobile number leaked on social media

The actor said she has ‘met the good, bad, and ugly’ in all the film industries that she has worked in, so far. Adah Sharma said she has ‘felt discrimination on the basis of gender’, recalling how women are called on set first and made to wait for their male counterparts.

Male actors are told to come on set after female actors

“I have worked with people from north and south, who were very amazing and not amazing also. I have realized it is the person. If your director is nice, irrespective of the language, everything goes very well. But if your director is not very pleasant, and not very nice, it’s just not a nice thing,” Adah said in an interview with Siddharth Kannan.

She further said, “I have met the good, bad, and ugly in all the places. I find it very strange that they first call the girl on the set and then they say, ‘ok, wait.’ When they see, ‘ok. she is here’, then they call the actor’s manager and tell him to come on the set and the girl is already there. I feel discrimination on the basis of gender, I don’t enjoy working in an environment like that.”

Controversy around The Kerala Story

Adah was last seen in The Kerala Story in the lead role, along with actors Yogita Bihani, Sonia Balani and Siddhi Idnani. The movie has so far grossed over ₹200 crore at the domestic box office.

Directed by Sudipto Sen, the film has been in the news for alleging that women from Kerala were forced to convert and recruited by the terror group ISIS. The West Bengal government had imposed a ban on the film on May 8, apprehending tensions among different communities. Theatres in Tamil Nadu had also decided to stop its screening, citing the law-and-order situation and a poor audience turnout.

The Kerala Story has been facing criticism after its trailer had earlier claimed that 32,000 women from Kerala had gone missing and joined the terrorist group ISIS. This claim had triggered political debate and many questioned the veracity of the claim.