Female actors like Farida Jalal never got the roles they desired

Veteran actor Farida Jalal recently took a trip down memory lane, looking back at her journey in Bollywood. While she spoke about the kinds of roles she wanted to play but never received, she also pointed out that many other female actors of her era suffered the fate of being typecast. Yet today Jalal has no regrets, feels that she has gotten her fill and is happy to see current actors getting the opportunities they didn’t decades ago.

Talking about how her male contemporaries had more scope to perform, even in character roles, back in the day, Jalal told a leading media house, “My male counterparts like Anupam Kher, Amrish Puri and Om Puri, who have acted opposite me, got to be the comedian and villain, besides just being the father figures. We, as female actors, were never given that, I am damned to it. People say I am very good with my dialogue delivery and voice. But where have they used it? Just to say ‘Beta kaise ho?’ I might be dying to show them that, but who is giving me the chance? Not just me, but so many character artistes like me have been slotted.”

“We are dying to show that side of us to the people, but should I produce a film myself to do a role I want to? Even if you become a producer and do that, then you are ridiculed and laughed at. So, I would never do that,” she continued.

Jalal also shared that she feels happy seeing OTT platforms giving such opportunities to female actors today. “Today, when I see OTT, there have been so many actors who have not been slotted into just playing mother’s roles. They get to do so many things now,” she observed.

Farida Jalal’s last outing was on the OTT space in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s ‘Heeramandi’. She played the role of Taha Shah’s grandmother in the series.