Radhika Apte has comfortably crossed between Hindi and South Indian films while also building a strong presence on OTT. Around 2019, however, she seems to have distanced herself from the southern industry, apparently over clashing sensibilities. As she prepares for the period crime thriller ‘Akka’, she has spoken about certain practices in the South that she couldn’t accept. Standing up for South Indian actresses, Radhika called out producers who choose ‘fairer’ actresses from the North for their projects.
Radhika Apte on her South film journey and casting bias
The actress entered South cinema in 2010 with the Telugu-Hindi film ‘Rakta Charitra’ and later appeared in ‘Vetri Selvan’, ‘Lion’ and ‘Kabali’. Her last South Indian outing was ‘Chithiram Pesuthadi 2’ in 2019, and she has stayed away from the industry since. Explaining the distance, she pointed to a clash of sensibilities and told News18 in a recent interview, “I could be wrong, but in my perception, North Indian actresses were cast down South because they were fairer. I’m not fair. I wonder why they wouldn’t cast South Indian actresses in South Indian films and get North Indian actresses instead!.”“Women down south are absolutely beautiful, talented and amazing, who know the language really well. They’re excellent performers. I think they should get cast in South films rather than people coming from Bombay, who can’t speak a word in that language and get their voices dubbed by others. I wasn’t very much in favour of all that,” she added.
Radhika Apte on language barriers
She also spoke about language barriers, saying, “If there’s a part that has to be performed by a particular actress because of a certain reason, then I understand. But then, language also became a big barrier for me; there was a point when I didn’t believe so, and I thought I could perform in any language. I went on to do films across seven different languages. You don’t want to just think of your lines. If you forget your lines and want to do something in the situation, you need to know the language first. Since I didn’t speak those languages, I figured I couldn’t do justice to those films.”
Radhika Apte on Telugu cinema being male-dominated
Radhika had earlier described Telugu cinema as “deeply patriarchal and male-dominated.” Last year, in a conversation on SCREEN’s CreatorXCreator, she recalled, “Some of the films that I did, I had a really difficult time on those sets. I remember there was this one time where I was the only woman on set. We were shooting in this small town. They wanted to add more padding to my bum and breasts. They were like, ‘Amma, more padding!’ I said, ‘How much more padding?’ (laughs). How much rounder would you make somebody?”.She went on to say, “I was the only woman! I had no manager. I had no agent. My team was all men because they’d given me the role. They said, ‘No, you’re not allowed to get your own team.’” Radhika also remembered the crew cracking lewd jokes about women on set. “I never, ever want to be put in that situation again because I’ll cry. It was actually traumatic. I wouldn’t want any woman to be in that position,” she said.
Radhika Apte on the better side of South film sets
Offering a fresh perspective in her recent interview, Radhika said she now chooses to focus on the better side of working on a South film set. She said, “I did my last South film ten years back. And what I recollect is that things were a bit more informal there. A lot of things happened out of dosti. They were very soft and kind. They would tell me, ‘You’re like family now.’ They treated you as though you were their sister. But that would mean that I would also have to do things out of favour. That would become a problem. But it was also nice because you felt you could go and chat with them.”
Radhika Apte’s latest series ‘Akka’
On the work front, Radhika’s latest series, ‘Akka’, co-stars Keerthy Suresh in an important role. It arrives on Netflix India on October 30.
