Abhishek Banerjee, who also runs a casting agency, has recently admitted that asking for sexual favours was a common practice in Bollywood, although this changed after the #MeToo movement.
What’s Happening
- Abhishek Banerjee also clarified that his company always prioritised talent and ensured that none of its employees were involved in such misconduct.
- Talking to Mid-Day about the changes brought by the MeToo movement, he said, “I think and I hope less of coffee shop meetings and less of dinner meetings after #MeToo. I think that’s one change, probably. When I speak to my female colleagues, I realise that now they’ve understood, they’ve become smarter than the guys would not be that direct.”
- He went on to explain how his company maintained strict guidelines.
- He shared, “But otherwise it was a very strong practice to have these coffee shop and dinner meetings for casting, which I never understood. I had a very strict rule in my casting company that nobody could go and meet an actor outside the office space. And if you’re meeting them outside office space, you’re not meeting them as a casting director. If I get to know that you’ve met an actor at some coffee shop for casting, you’re fired.”
Background
Abhishek Banerjee further revealed how normalised such practices were in the industry. “I remember when I used to cast, it was so difficult for people to like accept that we were doing it without sex. Ki hum kaam kar rahe hain, but hum only kaam kar rahe hain (That we are only working),” he said.
He also shared how actors would often react with disbelief. “I have had experiences where, after casting somebody, people have said, ‘Oh, so now when?’ And I would go, ‘What? You’re a fantastic actor. Like, why can’t you just accept that?” That there’s no prior notion behind casting you. It used to happen a lot,” Banerjee concluded.
