Zoya Akhtar says actresses ‘don’t want to carry the burden’ of leading films: ‘The first question they’ll ask you is who is the guy?’

Hindi movies are largely led by male actors, and while many women have been successful in carrying a film on their shoulders, there is a big gender imbalance in the industry, both in terms with the number of films with female protagonists and the wages paid to women in general. In a recent chat with Film Companion, the topic of women leading big projects came up, and film director Zoya Akhtar said that in her experience, a lot of female actors “don’t want to carry the burden.” It is commonly seen that films with female actors in the lead roles aren’t allotted budgets as large as those usually given to male-led films.

Director Hansal Mehta pointed out that his fellow filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali was successful in mounting a film like Gangubai Kathiawadi on Alia Bhatt’s shoulders, but not many filmmakers get that kind of financing. To this, Zoya Akhtar said, “A lot of the time, even the actresses don’t want to do it.” She shared, “The first question they’ll ask you is who is the guy in the film? They don’t want to carry the burden.”

While it is largely accepted that financiers don’t want to support projects with female leads, Zoya said that female actors themselves are “apprehensive.” “They’d rather be in a big hero-led film than carry their own film,” she said, and added, “A lot of the time, the actresses are not interested themselves.”

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Alia Bhatt’s success in Gangubai Kathiawadi was applauded widely, as the film did well at a time when the audience was still in the process of coming back to theatres after the pandemic. Bhansali’s film was one of the few success stories of 2022, as the year saw a handful of Hindi films making a mark at the box office. The Kashmir Files, Drishyam 2, Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 were some of the other hits of the year.

Zoya has previously made films such as Gully Boy, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and Dil Dhadakne Do. She recently co-directed and co-wrote the Prime Video series Made In Heaven. Her next film is Netflix’s The Archies.