‘Don’t look to superstars to speak up’, says Frieda Pinto

down in order to corroborate her story. However, I do know what truth, hurt and abuse sound like.”

Urging common people to speak out, Pinto said: “Don’t look to just your superstars to speak up. Be your own role model and follow the voice of your conscience.” Writer-director Nandita Das also extended her support to Dutta. “The more women speak up, the more it will give confidence to others who have been abused and will serve as a deterrent to those who also have felt they can get away with it. While #MeToo, and now #AfterMeToo which is also garnering momentum in the West, it is #TimesUp that resonates the most with me. It is a movement that doesn’t solely put the onus on the victims and instead invokes a sense of shared responsibility in all of us — both men and women,” said the director of Manto.

Speaking to The Indian Express earlier, Pinto had said that the entertainment industry was experiencing a transformation. “It’s a good time to be a woman, to be in the fields of cinema and television. There are several women-centric shows, such as Orange is the New Black and The Handmaid’s Tale, which have done very well. That’s definitely driving home the point that female protagonists are grabbing attention,” said Pinto, who is part of the much-anticipated movie Mowgli.“There are some excellent scripts which have not been made into a film and you wonder why. Then you find out there is an ethnic minority in the film and they did not know how to cast for it.”