EXCLUSIVE: Amid furore over Kareena Kapoor Khan’s remuneration, Vidya Balan opens up on pay disparity

Vidya Balan has time and again proved her mettle in acting. She is seen in a never-seen-before avatar in Amit V Masurkar’s Sherni where she plays the role of a forest officer. Vidya has always pushed the envelope and headlined movies with out-of-the-box characters. In an exclusive interview with Bollywood Bubble, Vidya shared her experiences of battling the lows in her life, and also she opened up on the huge furore about Kareena Kapoor Khan asking for a certain amount to do a film, adding fuel to the pay disparity debate. When we asked Vidya about the same, she gave a very balanced and logical solution to it.

She said, “I definitely see a change in it but I think we still have a long way to go. But importantly, we have to see things in a larger context. For decades we have seen that hero-led films have done very good business. So, the heroes get the big chunk of that money whereas the so-called female-centric films while there have been phases of that happening in the 80s or the golden era of cinema that not stayed. It’s only in the past 10-12 years, this has come to be not just a trend, but a reality.”

Vidya added, “I am very happy that the percentage of the overall budget that I get equals the percentage of what men get from the overall budget of the film. But the budget of my films is much lower than that of the men. But that gap will be bridged very soon.”

People judge women for what they ask for. On this, Vidya said, “Human beings judge one another. Women get judged more but I think all that is changing, and honestly, after a point, you realize that it doesn’t matter how you get judged. You have to go ahead and do what you want to do and that gives you great strength to be who you are.”

You can watch the full interview of Vidya Balan here.

Also Read: EXCLUSIVE: Vidya Balan opens up on being judged for her looks: I feared going out because of the nasty comments