Saand Ki Aankh bombed at the box-office but prior to its release, it sure made a lot of noise, courtesy the Neena Gupta tweet about the film. You may recall, a Twitter user had shared his opinion about the trailer of Taapsee Paanu-Bhumi Pednekar starrer, and said that he wishes older actresses like Neena Gupta and Shabana Azmi were cast for the roles.
Replying to which Neena had tweeted, "Yes I was just thinking about this hamari umar ke role toe kamsekam humse kara lo bhai." This sparked of ageism debate in the industry, post which Taapsee also retaliated and gave examples of older heroes, like Aamir Khan playing roles of college going kids (3 Idiots) and no one raising an objection.
Nonetheless, the controversy went on for long. Now, it's been almost 6 months to it. So, when we met Neena Gupta recently to chat about her upcoming film, Shubh Mangal Zyada Savdhan, we touched upon the controversy to know what does the actress think about it now (WATCH VIDEO ABOVE).
Neena's honesty left us surprised as the actress very calmly and in an extremely upfront way said, "I regret tweeting that. I think it was a mistake. I say mistake because it was blown out of proportion for nothing. I meant something else and it was taken otherwise."
When we asked her what did she actually mean, Neena said, "I just meant that as it is older women like us don't get roles, so it should have come to me." Adding to it, Neena also revealed that she had messaged Anurag long back about the film, when its casting was on, as she had liked the story.
"Not many know but I had messaged Anurag to cast me in the film because I liked the story. He replied to me saying that, 'I myself want to cast older actresses but my co-producers and financiers are wanting to cast younger actresses' which I understand because they sell more than me. This is a business, nothing is personal here- whosoever sells is taken. So, I thought in my mind, 'chodo yaar, why did I speak out loud. I should have just kept my views to myself,'" said Neena.
The senior actress also mentions an interesting fact, where she says, "Sab se zyada maine apni jawaani mein older roles kiye hai kyunki tab toh paise nahi rehte the toh jo bhi role aata tha , hum kar lete the. I have played Anu Kapoor's mother's role and mind you, he was my batch-mate."
The senior actress also mentions an interesting fact, where she says, "Sab se zyada maine apni jawaani mein older roles kiye hai kyunki tab toh paise nahi rehte the toh jo bhi role aata tha , hum kar lete the. I have played Anu Kapoor's mother's role and mind you, he was my batch-mate."
When we cross-questioned her asking, did she forget that fact (about playing older characters when she was young) in the hindsight before tweeting about Saand Ki Aankh, Neena was quick to reply, "Nahi main bhuli nahi hun. But tab ka time alag tha. Hamari majboori thi. Uss time TV nahi tha, satellite nahi tha, sirf films thi. So, we used to not leave any opportunity."
Neena ended the conversation by giving out an advise, "I just feel soch samjhkar likho aaj kal. Kuch pata nahi, kaun kiss baat ka kya bana de. So, I think ten times before writing anything. It will be either about my work or else when I am looking very nice (laughs)."
Image Source:- lodynet/spotboyeteam