Radhika Apte, an actor known for moving between Hindi, South Indian and OTT work, has explained the distance she took from South Indian films after 2019 by pointing to a long-standing casting preference: fairer North Indian women for lead roles, even when local actors knew the language better.
In a recent interview with News18 ahead of the period crime thriller Akka, she said the practice did not sit well with her. “I’m not fair,” she said, adding that she wondered why South Indian actresses were often passed over in South Indian films for actors from Bombay who had to be dubbed.
Akka, which also stars Keerthy Suresh, arrives on Netflix India on October 30.
Three tensions she names
Apte’s South filmography runs from the 2010 Telugu-Hindi Rakta Charitra through Vetri Selvan, Lion and Kabali; her last South Indian release was Chithiram Pesuthadi 2 in 2019. Looking back, she identifies three recurring problems:
- Casting bias: producers choosing fairer North Indian women over South Indian women who know the language and craft.
- Language barrier: after acting across seven languages, she concluded she could not do justice to a part without speaking the language fluently.
- Set culture: an informality that could feel warm but also extract favours, alongside the male-dominated environment she says she no longer wants to return to.
On language, she said her early confidence was misplaced. “I thought I could perform in any language,” she recalled, but realising that a performer needs the language to improvise changed her view. She described doing films in seven languages, then stepping back because she felt she could not serve the material fully.
Her strongest words on that environment came in an earlier SCREEN conversation. She recalled a shoot where she was the only woman on set, was asked to accept more padding, and heard lewd jokes. “It was actually traumatic,” she said, adding that she would not want any woman in that position.
What she relented on
Her account is not all criticism. She said she now prefers to remember the better side of South sets: things happened informally, often “out of dosti,” and people treated her like family. But the same warmth came with expectations of returning favours, she said, which created its own problem.
Why it matters
Colourism has shaped casting across Indian film industries for decades, and Apte’s testimony connects it to language, labour and the treatment of women on set. For an audience that follows Hindi cinema closely, her account is a reminder that cross-industry casting is rarely just about acting ability. It also arrives as Akka puts her back in a multilingual, female-led story on a major streaming platform, where casting choices are being watched more closely.
Source: The Times of India
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