‘Jubilee’ Actor Wamiqa Gabbi On Casting Couch: Personally Not Faced Anything Like This, Call Myself Fortunate

Actress Wamiqa Gabbi has been part of projects like ‘Grahan’, ‘Modern Love Mumbai’, ‘Khufiya’ and ‘Fursat’, but it is her latest project ‘Jubilee’, which has made her the centre of attention. She is seen as Niloufer Qureshi in the Vikramaditya Motwane-directed series, which dropped its five episodes last Friday. 

In the show, she plays a courtesan, who is sold off to a brothel after the Partition but ends up escaping, only to carve her own path. Next up, Siddhant Gupta’s character Jay Khanna, casts her in his big film, and she rises to be a star. One of her dialogues in the show is ‘Film banane ke liye kisi na kisi ke sath sona padhta hai, ya shareer se ya imaan se (You need to compromise to make a film, either physically or morally),’ clearly hinting at the casting couch in Bollywood. 

Now, in a recent chat with Indian Express, Wamiqa mentioned how it is not only about films but any industry, and revealed how she’s been lucky to not experience anything like this. “I have personally not faced anything like this, and I call myself fortunate. I have grown up in a very protected environment and have always had my family’s support. I have no connection to the film industry and my dad always says I was lucky to have gotten good work. To be honest, we all hear about these things and I have wondered how I would have reacted if this was to happen to me. As a woman, you always think about it,” she said.

Wamiqa added that the casting couch never gets spoken about, and said, “It happens everywhere but no one gets to know about it. As actors, we are accessible and even share about it on platforms so people know it happens. Otherwise, I know about my friends who are in corporations and have faced similar situations. Bollywood aiwe hi badnaam hai sirf (Bollywood is only defamed). And zabardasti koi so nahi sakta (no one can force you to do it). Also, in this show more than physical, we are talking about compromises one does morally, or turn selfish and corrupt.”

She also talked about her role as Nilofuer and said, “She is not in touch with that innocence, the child in her. But when she meets him (Jay Khanna), something clicks and you can see a transformation. That’s the connection they share and it’s so different. The carelessness, the comfort with Jay is so beautiful to watch.”

The series also stars Aparshakti Khurana, Prosenjit Chatterjee, Aditi Rao Hydari, Ram Kapoor, among others.