Mind you: Not all that glitters is gold

Actor Raveena Tandon talks the downside of being a ‘star child’

NEW DELHI: Considering that Raveena Tandon has been a part of Bollywood for a quarter of a century and tasted success with films like Shool and Daman: A Victim of Marital Violence, one should believe the actor when she says that being a celebrity is not easy. “It is certainly not a piece of cake,” Raveena said recently.

The 41-year-old Satta actor is the daughter of director Ravi Tandon, who made films like Khel Khel Mein with Neetu Singh and Rishi Kapoor, back in the day. According to Raveena, children of stars get noticed in the industry much easily than those with a non-film background.

However, these ‘star children’ have to live up to certain expectations too. “There’s pressure from the public and if your film doesn’t work, it gets even worse! People look down upon you even more because they think that everything has been served to you on a silver platter,” said Raveena.

The actor ventured into Bollywood back in 1991 and became part of some top-grossing films including Dilwale and Mohra. In fact, the success of the latter marked a turning point in Raveena’s career, announcing her arrival as a leading lady of Indian cinema. When asked if she has seen a change in the portrayal of women in cinema over the years, Raveena responded, “The period of the 1990s brought about more changes in Bollywood. By that time, there were several films showing the changing role of the female component of cinema and Shool was one of them.”



The Ziddi actor was last seen on the big screen in film-maker Anurag Kashyap’s Bombay Velvet, in a cameo appearance. Since then, Raveena, who won a National Award for playing a victim of domestic abuse in Daman, has been away from the silver screen. Could it be that marriage has proved detrimental to her career? “I kept acting even after getting married! It wasn’t all that long ago that marriage marked the end of a female actor’s career but things have changed considerably,” stated Raveena, who married film distributor Anil Thadani in 2004. The couple went on to have two children, daughter Rasha and son Ranbir, along with Pooja and Chhaya whom Raveena had adopted earlier.

The actor went on to assert that, “As a society, we need to change our laws to protect women.” Perhaps that is why she has chosen to do film-maker Onir’s Shab, which also deals with violence against women. “It’s an emotional story in which I play a high-society woman having a relationship with a younger man,” shared Raveena.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 27^th, 2016.

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