Actress Sargun Mehta credits Ekta Kapoor for paving way for women filmmakers
Actress Sargun Mehta credits Ekta Kapoor for paving way for women filmmakers
Actress Sargun Mehta credits producer Ekta Kapoor
for paving the way for women filmmakers to set foot to the Indian television industry and back content which echoes with them.
Sargun has carved a niche for herself and etched a name for as an actor to reckon with in the television and Punjabi movie industry. She has hosted projects and lined up as a producer including TV show, ‘Badal Pe Paon Hai’.
Adding that in the television industry, Ekta Kapoor has cleared the way for everyone and has left no stone unturned to make ensure that they didn’t have that hassle of being told, ‘How will you do it (produce a show)?’. She has already done much that nobody can question her or a woman producer.
In a media interaction, she asserted that in Punjabi movies, they were not used to the idea of women producing, not that they mocked her, but underestimated her. They didn’t think that she will pull it (films) off the way she has done.
After producing Punjabi films and TV shows like ‘Kala Shah Kala’, ‘Jhalle’, ‘Udaariyaan’, and ‘Junooniyat’, among others, Mehta said she has realised acting is a far easier job than producing.
She realised now that production is a thankless job. As an artist, when she comes on set, she feels that she has a lot of work to do’, but there are others like the unit (crew), creative team and producer who have been working for months or years.
She further went on to add that sometimes when artists crib, she is like, you have a fun job to do, do not crib’. She is not saying it is an easy job. It’s difficult to be an artist but the other job can override your perception of what one is doing. She does it by producing because she likes to have control over what she is making.
She also added that being happy to have started her acting journey in the Punjabi movie industry, which has over the years grown by leaps and bounds.
At the time around, the Punjabi movie industry wasn’t doing that great. Everybody asked her why she is doing it? She would be like, ‘I love it and it’s all good’. The industry has taken leaps and bounds in terms of growth.
There were four films being made earlier. Now, they are churning out 60 films a year, and touching Rs 100 crore at the box office. I’m happy to be part of a growing industry.
You are not saturated that way. Everybody is hungry to do more and they are experimenting a lot. Mehta, who had acted alongside Akshay Kumar in 2022 critically-acclaimed Hindi film, ‘Cuttputlli’, articulated that foraying into Bollywood a decade ago looked like a far-fetched thing for her as she didn’t know who to approach.
At that point, Bollywood always felt like a far-fetched thing. She also said yhat6 felt, ‘Bollywood is very far, how will she go there?’. There are always steps to reach somewhere, besides she wanted to hone her skills. There weren’t so many famous casting directors and those who were there knew who we were. The opportunities are now in millions because of OTT. You meet casting directors and people are on Instagram,” she added.
Mehta made her feature film debut in 2015 with Punjabi romantic-comedy, ‘Angrej’, which emerged as one of the highest grossing films of the year. Some of her other notable works includes ‘Love Punjab’, ‘Lahoriye’, ‘Qismat’, ‘Moh’ and ‘Jatt Nuu Chudail Takri’.
Mehta’s home production ‘Badal Pe Paon Hai’ is set to air on Sony SAB channel on June 10.
The family-drama narrates the story of a young girl (Amandeep Sidhu) with big dreams and her venture into the unfamiliar world of the stock market.
She wanted to learn about stocks as a lot of her friends are into it. As she began to learn, she started to think of this character. There are women doing their best in all fields. You’ve to open career options for them other than the typical professions like cook and journalist. Women sitting at home don’t know that they can do this (trade in share market). flelt this is a story waiting to be told.
News Edit K.V.Raman
