The ‘nepotism’ and ‘big star’ culture in Bollywood is not new. Many celebrities have opened up earlier about the casting directors and their certain preferences.
Recently, one of the most talented actors in Bollywood, Shefali Shah spilled the beans about the same. Shefali has spoken how she was replaced by a “bigger star” and how she felt “terrible” about it.
Talking to a leading daily, Shefali revealed that she was replaced without being informed. She continued without mentioning the project name that the decision hurt her and she missed an opportunity to be starred in a nice role.
Shefali stated, “I don’t know somebody might still sign me for a project and I would get to know the next day that I’m no more in the show or the film (shrugs). You never know. Look, I don’t know how people function. So I don’t think that incident had so much to do with me as much as it had to do with the person who did it. Finally who got cast is a bigger star, there’s no debate in it. It’s the director’s prerogative.”
The actress also added, “All it required was for somebody to make that call or the director to call me and say ‘I’m sorry or You know what we think xyz works better for the film’. Now, that is human behaviour, that is the basic courtesy… I felt terrible about it. I felt terrible about it but I also knew the person they had cast was a bigger star, was a star, I’m not a star, I’m an actor. Of course, it hurt me. But it was more a sense of ‘Aare bata toh dete (You could have told me at least)’. Secondly, it was more of a sense of, ‘S*** yaar, I lost out on a really nice role’, that was it.”
The 49-year-old actress later revealed that the person didn’t even meet her and apologized via a message through a person which reads, “didn’t realise I hadn’t let you know about it.”
Shefali Shah will be next seen in the upcoming webshow Human where she will be playing the role of Dr. Gauri Nath. The show revolves around the story of medical mafias and unravels the secret world of medicines and their effects on people. The story accelerates with mystery, murder, lust, and manipulation. It will be released on January 14.
Shefali shared a teaser of her role calling it “Gauri Nath supremacy.”
Shefali’s one of the remarkable roles can be seen in Delhi Crimes where she plays the role of a female IPS officer, Vartika Chaturvedi. The story revolves around the infamous Nirbhaya case.
Recently, Shefali shared a post marking the one year anniversary of the Emmy winning film. She wrote, “One year since we made history winning the EMMYS for Delhi Crime. So so proud will be forever being a part of this show. This is to the team without them it wouldn’t have been possible and the man Richie Mehta.”