When I came into the industry, I was shocked with the way things were : Sonam Kapoor

Sonam Kapoor has always been an advocate for feminism and equal right for male and female actors. She is not someone who filters her mind and says it like it is. While promoting her upcoming release, Veere Di Wedding, Sonam spoke candidly with Times of India on how the current A-List actors tends to stay away from female-oriented movies.

Sonam said, "We don’t have A-list heroes in our industry who agree to do good films like Raazi, Neerja, Raanjhanaa (2013), Khoobsurat or even a Veere Di Wedding. No one said yes. I don’t think they have the confidence to do that. My father (Anil Kapoor) did films like Beta (1992) with Madhuri Dixit and Laadla (1994) with Sridevi, but I haven’t seen anyone do that. He’s a different kind of person. He raised me to be a feminist. When I came into the industry, I was shocked with the way things were. I was raised very differently. My parents never made me believe that I was any different from my brother. When I came here, I saw we were not paid the same amount as the hero, and not given the same kind of rooms as the leading man. People had that ‘Woh hero hai’ mentality. In the 11 years that I have been around, things have changed, yet there is a lot of change that needs to happen.

Talking about breaking the typical stereotypes actresses have to endure and making a change in that paticular sense of thinking, Sonam continued, "It’s important for women to own up to what they like and don’t like without the fear of being judged. Look, a lot happens around us because of our general conditioning. We ask a woman if she’s slowing down after marriage or having babies. Do we ask a man that? Look at Kareena! We come from different schools of filmmaking, but I respect the fact that she started out in the early 2000s and has done an array of work, including films like Chameli (2003) and Ki & Ka (2016). She’s worked like crazy even after marriage and having a baby. We didn’t ask Shahid Kapoor if his life slowed down because of marriage or babies. I went to Cannes immediately after my wedding, which was just an extension of my state of mind."

 Meanwhile, Veere Di Wedding also stars Kareena Kapoor Khan, Swara Bhasker and Shikha Talsania. Directed by Shashanka Ghosh, Veere Di Wedding is slated to release on June 1, 2018.