Amrita Puri Says She Got A Lot Of Praise But Not Work After ‘Aisha’. Are We Still Typecasting?
One of the major problems with the Indian mindset is that we are all too quick to put people into certain boxes and confine them to it. Be it in terms of personality, choices, fashion or even work. As soon as you pick something up from a particular genre, whether it is a book or a role in a movie, even if it is for the very first time, you are suddenly typecast into the role. And before you know it, you’ve been branded in the industry. A stale move that the Bollywood industry has been guilty of making on a lot of actresses, including actor Amrita Puri, post her role in the Sonam Kapoor and Abhay Deol starrer, Aisha.
Opening up about her experience early on in the industry, the actress who was recently seen in Jeet Ki Zidd alongside Amit Sadh on Zee5, spoke at length about her career and journey in Bollywood. She shared, “I feel lucky that I managed to stick around and do some good work. People thought that I was on a break and as I am lowkey as a person, which also didn’t help. I didn’t want to do work for the sake of it.”
She then went on to talk about how she found it hard to shake off the tag of being suitable only for roles like she picked up in the movie Aisha. “When I did Aisha, I got a lot of praise and thought I would get work equivalent to the praise but it wasn’t the case. I struggled to find good work. I felt disappointment. People wanted me to play similar role and couldn’t think that I could play other kinds of roles,” recalled Amrita.
Post Aisha, I got praise but not good work, says #AmritaPuri, adds, “People told me they were looking for heroine material, and I thought I am heroine material but guess they didn’t.”#KaiPoChe #JeetKiZid
Interview: @iamkavhttps://t.co/q1UO7cq5B5— HT City (@htcity) February 22, 2021
Also Read : Shefali Shah Talks About How She Was Typecast By The Industry And Only Given Roles Of Older Women. But She’s Certainly Changed That
She also shared, “People were looking for a typical heroine material and I think I am heroine material (laughs). I don’t know what they wanted. I had to work hard to break that image. Back then, roles other than the lead didn’t stand out but today are appreciated.”
The credit for this goes to the OTT platforms that have been instrumental in bringing across content that wasn’t protagonist centric, but story centric. Amrita Puri was last seen in Amazon Prime Video series Four More Shots Please! and Made in Heaven. In Jeet Ki Zidd, she plays the wife of a special forces officer (Amit Sadh), who becomes loses his ability to walk after a mission that goes sideways. Her character is the support system and the one who ensures her husband doesn’t give up on life, and gets his fighting spirit back. We hope to see more of Amrita Puri on OTT and in movies soon!
