Regina Cassandra has joined the discussion around Janhvi Kapoor and Radhika Apte’s recent comments about Telugu cinema, urging actors to speak up about on-set discomfort but warning against turning individual experiences into a North-South divide.
Speaking to India Today, Cassandra acknowledged that Kapoor and Apte had opened a necessary conversation. Kapoor had said she should have pushed back more during the Peddi controversy; Apte had described a Telugu film in which she played a woman married to her maternal uncle and was paired with a much older actor.
Cassandra’s position is that disclosure is not the problem, framing is.
“You are making a North-South divide without even realising it, and that is absolutely wrong,” Cassandra said.
She described herself as a South Indian actor who works in Hindi cinema and said there are different ways of handling these issues.
Walk out rather than claim no choice
Her sharper point is about agency. Cassandra said an actor who is uncomfortable with a scene or role can leave the project.
“If you feel uncomfortable, please walk out of the film. I don’t think we should put ourselves in a position where we say we had no choice,” she said.
She added that she was not taking sides between Kapoor and Apte, and was speaking as an outsider.
The Kesari Chapter 2 experience
Cassandra connected the debate to her own experience. She played Akshay Kumar’s wife in Dharma Productions’ Kesari Chapter 2, but said her name was missing from promotional activities. A song featuring her throughout was released, she said, without her being tagged or informed.
She asked what that should be called if she was a South Indian, noting that the same Karan Johar-led production house made the film and decided not to promote her. She said she usually avoids discussing such matters publicly, but the current industry conversation made it relevant.
Why the framing matters
The exchange matters beyond two interviews. Hindi cinema has often reduced actors from southern industries to outsider caricatures. Cassandra is asking the trade and its audience to hold two ideas at once:
- Women in film have every right to describe objectification and discomfort on set.
- A single production’s failures should not be read as the culture of an entire regional industry.
That distinction allows accountability without converting workplace problems into geography. It is also a useful test for how Hindi cinema covers regional industries: name the conduct, the production and the decision-maker, not the language.
Source: News18
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