‘Bollywood sets don’t care if you faint’: Elli AvrRam says South sets are more ‘peaceful’

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‘Bollywood sets don’t care if you are going to faint’

Elli then mentioned that while crews in the South care if she has had her meals, she felt that this culture was absent in Bollywood. “My experience in Bollywood has been more like, even if you are eating, but you are told your shot is ready. We don’t care if you have eaten, if you faint, but the shot is ready,” she said, but quickly added, “But it depends on who you are working with.”

She recalled that she recently worked on a Netflix project where the filmmaker and their crew was all about hospitality and were taking good care of everyone who was involved. She said, “You have to try to be your best.”

When asked if there were better opportunities in the south for female actors for content-driven films, Elli said yes, and added, that Bollywood filmmakers tend to typecast actors in certain roles. “Like, if you are cast in pretty girl roles, you stick to that,” she said.

‘Filmmakers were shocked to see me in Malang’

She recalled that when she was cast in Mohit Suri’s 2020 film Malang, she was told that filmmakers were “shocked” to see her. “When I was cast for Malang, when I was portrayed in a different way, nobody expected that I would do a role like this. I was told that filmmakers were shocked that Elli is a serious actor. That’s when I started to realise that people have a perception of you. Until they meet you and get to know your story, they will have this idea about you that this person will only fit into this,” she said. In Malang, Elli played a sex worker who is struggling with addiction.

Elli recalls meeting Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan

In the same chat, Elli also spoke about working with Aamir Khan for a song in Koi Jaane Na and said, “Apart from being a perfectionist, Aamir Khan is extremely down to earth. He talks to everybody, acknowledges everybody. He also cares about your opinion and even considers it, and does not completely ignore it.”

She also recalled meeting Shah Rukh Khan on the set of a reality show. She recalled that as a young girl living in Sweden, she had watched Devdas umpteen times. “Devdas was the first full-fledged Bollywood film that I saw, and I made all my friends watch it. I fell in love with that film; I was crying, my friends were crushing over Shah Rukh Khan. The day I work with him, it would mean a big deal for my friends in Sweden,” she said.

About Elli AvrRam

Elli started her journey in the entertainment industry with Bigg Boss 7 in 2013. She made her Bollywood debut the same year with Mickey Virus. She has since appeared in films like Malang, Goodbye, Ganapath. In Tamil cinema, she has appeared in Naane Varuvean, Conjuring Kannappan, among others. She has also appeared in web series like The Verdict – State vs Nanavati, Inside Edge 2.