Bollywood actor Surveen Chawla makes casting couch allegations on 'popular National award-winning Tamil director'

Surveen Chawla, who played a casting agent in the Netflix original Sacred Games, has opened up about her struggles with the casting couch. The popular television star has claimed in a recent interview that filmmakers wanted to see her thighs and cleavage.

“A director wanted to see how my cleavage looked. Another director wanted to see how my thighs looked. I went to give this audition and the person told me, ‘You are overweight’. I was just 56 kilos and I thought the person needed to get his eyes checked,” she reportedly said, while talking to Pinkvilla. 

She also opened up about her experiences in the film industries down South. She said, “Then came the South and that was my biggest blow. I faced the casting couch thrice. There was a time I was asked to accompany a film director for a recce and I was told ‘I want to know every inch of your body’. I just started ignoring calls from then on. There was another ridiculously big director down South, a National Award-winning director. I had a very long audition there, it almost lasted a shift. I had to do various things — recite a monologue and saying something impromptu. I was unwell and I returned after the audition. Then the director suddenly offered to come to Mumbai as I was unwell. I found it very creepy and said ‘No, thank you’.”

She minced no words when talking about the situation. “On the same phone call, in which I was not speaking to the director, as he could only speak Tamil and no English or Hindi. He spoke to me through someone, maybe a friend. That person told me on the phone that ‘Sir needs to know you, he needs to understand you as this film will take a long time to make’. And then he jumped to ‘only till the film and then you can stop’. I very innocently asked him, ‘Stop what?’ So, he said ‘Just till the film this will go on; then you can stop’. I still remember my words. I told him that you are knocking on the wrong door. If sir thinks I am talented then I am still willing to work in his film, but I cannot barter myself. And that film also didn’t happen,” she said.

Surveen made her debut in the television industry with Ekta Kapoor’s Kahiin To Hoga.