It would not be wrong to say that casting couch has been a common practice in showbiz, both India and globally. However, post the #MeToo movement, several women from the industry are opening up about their experiences.
Adding to it, singer-actress-painter Suchitra Krishnamoorthi, in a recent interview, talked about her casting couch experience, and revealed how she was once told by a filmmaker to spend a night with him in a hotel room. Adding how such things were very common back in the day, Suchitra added how the incident left her on the verge of tears, but she ran away in an instant.
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In an interview with Siddharth Kannan, Suchitra recalled, “I met this producer-director and he asked me, ‘Who are you close to, mom or dad?’ We were meeting in a hotel and in those days, a lot of meetings happened in hotels. It was quite common. I said, ‘I am very close to my father.'” She further revealed how the filmmaker then asked her to call your father and tell him that he will drop her back home tomorrow morning.
She added, “I was almost on the verge of tears. I picked up all my stuff and I said I’m just coming and I ran.” Suchitra said it took her a while to process what he was saying. “At first, I didn’t understand what he was saying. It takes you a while to process. Then I was like it’s 4-5 pm right now. What am I going to do with him till tomorrow morning? Then it started striking me what he is probably intending. But this used to happen a lot.”
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Suchitra Krishnamoorthi rose to fame after appearing in the 1994 movie ‘Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa’. However, after she got married to filmmaker Shekhar Kapur, she quit films in 1999.
She had earlier told Kannan how her parents were against the alliance. “My parents were against this marriage as Shekhar was my mother’s age at that time and he was divorced from the film industry. My mother sat at my feet and begged me not to go forward with this marriage. They asked me to have an affair and get it out of my head. But I was sure that this is what I want and it is something that I brought on myself,” she had mentioned.
