'Filmmakers wanted to see how my cleavage, thighs looked': When Surveen Chawla spoke about casting couch

In 2020, in an interview with Times Now, while speaking on the topic of the casting couch in the entertainment industry, Kangana Ranaut had said, "Main yeh nahi kehti ke main sabko generalise kr ri hu. But, main jisko mili hu, A List, B List, Biggest superstars, the expectation from a girl is to behave like a wife on sets." "Next film comes, next hero comes. That is the truth of the industry." she had added. 

Talking about Bollywood's dark secret of the casting couch, Radhika Apte had told Bollywoodlife.com in an interview in 2016, "I think once an actor in South called me on my room phone and tried to get flirtatious and I just was so rude to him. I think he fought with me later on. But anyway, I haven't ever got a request saying that you have to sleep with us. Oh, once I got a call and they said 'they're doing this film in Bollywood and I want you to have a meeting with them. But would you be okay sleeping with that person?' And I laughed! I said you're so funny, you’re very funny and I said no I'm not. Ask him to go to hell."

Admitting that the casting couch did exist in the entertainment industry, in an interview to SpotBoye Chitrangada Singh had said, "There are people like this everywhere. Right from my modelling days to Bollywood, I have seen them at all times. The corporate industry is just as bad. Yes, it has happened with me but I would like to say that the Bollywood industry is not the place where anybody forces you. There is enough space and respect for everyone and their choices. You do feel bad when you lose an opportunity but then those are the choices you make. So, you don’t sulk about it."

In a session with Kommune India in 2016, Tisca Chopra had opened up about her experience of Bollywood's infamous 'casting couch'. Tisca recalled how a filmmaker tried to take advantage of her by offering her a film but she manage to bust his plans when he was 'sitting in a satin maroon lungi kurta' in a hotel room waiting for her, by colluding with the director's wife, son and young crew members of the film. "Come eight o'clock I go to the hotel's flower and cake shop, I buy this exotic bouquet... and this box of luxurious chocolates and I knock on Reptile's door. And he says come in, and he's sitting in a satin maroon lungi kurta. It was so tight, it was so cheesy, but there he was reclining." "He looked a little surprised when he saw me behave this way. Because he said that he didn't expect the fly to be so enthusiastic to walk into the spider's web," explained Chopra. "And just then, the phone rang. And it was his son calling.""And sir just lost his desire to discuss the script and that was that. And I was not on a plane to India, and we did finish the film and it was great fun," said Chopra.

In an interview with PinkVilla in 2019, the 'Sacred Games' star had said while talking about 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."

Talking about casting couch experiences in the Hindi film industry, she said, "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."