Neha Dhupia: I Had Been Asked to Step Down from Many Projects During Pregnancy

Neha Dhupia is basking in the success of her recently released film, A Thursday. The thriller flick, which was released on OTT, also stars Dimple Kapadia and Yami Gautam. The actor plays a pregnant cop in the film and she was actually expecting her second child, Guriq Singh Dhupia Bedi, who was born in October 2021.

Talking about being on the sets and shooting for the film during her third trimester, the actress says that she had a lot of fear but she wanted to continue working. “The fear is there otherwise on a film set. But we really did it with too much caution and also we were shooting during the pandemic, so the larger fear was that. I remember we shot the entire film during the rain so that was a bit scary. I feel everything at that time was a matter of concern. But in the real sense, when a woman is pregnant, she is actually the strongest woman in the room and there is no harm in continuing to go to work. And that’s the only thing that I want to harp upon. Yes. If clinically, you’re advised to sit at home or emotionally you want to sit at home or even for personal reasons, but otherwise, a woman should not give up on her career. Also, the safest place for the baby is the mother’s womb,” she says.

She adds, “The shooting was physically tough, especially because of the rains. I would be drenched all day. The jeans would stick to my legs and I would just stay on the sets. Everyone would ask me to go and get some rest in my trailer but I couldn’t make it back. The steps on the trailer were so high. I could not do so many things.”

Dhupia says husband Angad Bedi was really supportive throughout the pregnancy. “As partners Angad and I decided to grow our family. He realised in the process that professionally nothing changes for him and everything changes for me. So Angad’s bigger concern is that everything that I was signed on shouldn’t be taken away. But I had been asked to step down from many projects and I don’t hold that against anyone. I must give credit to director Behzad Khambata and producer Ronnie Screwvala for allowing me to work on A Thursday. They willingly changed the script around. Coming back to Angad, he was really brave and would constantly check on me. The romance was in him picking me up and driving me back home. I had strange cravings which he would oblige too so it was really nice.”

The actor questions the industry being wary about working with pregnant women, “In the corporate world when a female is pregnant, her work is not taken away from her, then why in the film industry, which is so liberated, female actors in many cases have to bear the brunt of sitting at home? Why does it have to be synonymous to marriage, motherhood, sabbatical and comebacks?”

While Angad has started shooting in Pune for Ghoomer which also features Abhishek Bachchan, Neha will soon start shooting for her next which is a comedy film. Ask her about how they are going to maintain the work-life balance and she says, “It is going to be tough to manage the children but we will have to find the balance. We aren’t the first set of working parents. But we will have to work out schedules. Earlier, I would just chill around on the sets after shooting or would reach earlier to figure out my scenes but now I have to rush back home and Angad will probably do the same. Also, I have endless support from my parents who are always available whenever we need them.”

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