TV actress Sanaya Irani has revealed that she has faced casting couch and inappropriate advances from powerful men in the film industry. Sanaya revealed that there were occasions when filmmakers called her to hotels and asked her to wear bikinis and the only retort she could take was finish the conversations.
In a recent interview with Hauterrfly, Sanaya recounted how a film personality from the south once passed a body-shaming remark on her. “Long ago, a person from the South wanted to meet me for a film. At that point, I didn’t want to do films. But, this person was hellbent in meeting me. So I just went, and after meeting, he was like ‘we need a little fuller person’. And I was like ‘then I am not the fuller person’,” she said.
Sanaya said in the interview that many people meet actresses to gauge if they would willingly sleep with them. “A lot of times, I feel that people meet girls in the industry to meet them, to suss it out–is she the kind who slept or hasn’t slept,” she added.
The actress recounted a harrowing incident she faced with a ‘big Bollywood director’, who wanted to cast her for a film. She recalled, “So he was like, ‘I am making this big film, there are many big heroes in it and you will have to wear a bikini.’ And I was like, ‘And my character is?’ and he was like ‘are you okay wearing a bikini?’ He was getting a little rude to me and I hung up on him.”
Sanaya is best known for playing Gunjan in Miley Jab Hum Tum, having begun her career with Left Right Left. She has also done supporting roles in films like Fanaa and Ghost. She was last seen in Rangrasiya in 2014.
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