Bolly Tolly News, Kolkata 22nd November, 2017 : The Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal opened up a can of worms in Hollywood; it also led to a tidal wave of women coming forward to name and shame sexual predators in the industry. In Bollywood, however, while some women did speak out about their experiences, no one was willing to reveal the names of serial offenders.
Sunny Leone, however, thinks it's only a
matter of time before Bollywood follows Hollywood's suit. “It takes one woman
to talk, and then many others follow," the actress told us in a recent
conversation. "I haven’t been privy to this situation because I have my
husband (Daniel Weber) and my team with me, although people have been cheeky.
But what has been happening now is insane. I read a lot on psychology and have
been tryign to understand the emotions in a woman's mind (when she's subjected
to harassment). A woman may feel, ‘This happened to me and it is wrong but I
don’t know how to say that aloud. I am embarrassed, I'm scared — what if they
come after me, what if something happens to me?’.”
One of the fears of course is that they won't
get more work in the industry if they speak up about powerful predators, but
Sunny thinks staying silent about sexual harassment goes beyond that.
"It’s beyond work," she says. "As a woman, you either stand up
for yourself, or maybe you haven’t quite mustered the confidence to do that as
yet, or after hearing all these stories which are in the news, maybe now it feels
okay to women to say 'This is wrong. I don’t want this. S***w your job, go find
somebody else'. But the problem is that they don’t yet have that courage here.
Now because everybody is speaking out, we will have a lot of young women having
the courage to do so as well. I’m proud of all the women who have taken a
stand.”
Leone, who is currently promoting her upcoming
supernatural thriller Tera Intezaar (in which she stars opposite Arbaaz Khan),
pointed out that one of the reasons she has survived in this largely
male-dominated industry is due to her "fearless" nature. "I have
done everything that I wanted to do and not what everybody else wanted me to
do, and the best part is that I can say yes or no to whoever without having any
fear,” she said.
If not sexual predators, the adult movie
star-turned-Bollywood actor faced hurdles in the past — especially from the
moral police when she stepped into the industry. It took courage to hold her
ground amid a highly judgmental society even as she remained one of the most
Googled Indians. Sunny was once quoted saying, "Yes, I do feel like an
outsider in the film fraternity. But I feel I've been accepted by my
fans." Sunny tells us: "Yes, when I came here, everybody said, ‘Oh
no, you need to go’. That was expected considering I was from the 'outside' and
from a completely different background than anybody in this industry. But the
perception kept changing and I have seen lot of changes from the time nobody
wanted to talk to me, then a couple of people started, then a few more, then
someone started calling, sending gifts... so it has completely changed with
time and that acceptance is obviously there. If I hang around long enough, they
will feel I’m not going anywhere, and they will be like, ‘Okay fine, now we
have to accept her' [laughs out loud].”
The industry may have accepted her, but Sunny
still gets threats to her life. “If I send you the crazy messages I received in
just the last two days, you will be shocked," she says wryly. "I get
death threats...all sorts of weird threats. People have been doing these crazy
things for the last six years but it didn't bother me. I’m happy. I’m fine. I
am working. I’m safe. If somebody abuses me, and I react with: ‘What are you
talking about, how can you call me that?' then all of a sudden everybody's
attention gets drawn to that. Now why would I want others to hear what somebody
has said on social media? That means absolutely nothing to me. Why would I give
that person any attention? When people, who are in the limelight acknowledge
somebody who is this horrible, then you just give them a voice.” Sunny admits
this may not be the best solution, especially if there's a threat of physical
harm. "If someone threatens your physical being and you feel scared, then
you should speak up. I have done that. I have contacted the police, I have
called Twitter to shut down people’s accounts — I have done all sorts of things
to protect myself,” she say.
Sunny was recently seen in special dance
numbers in Ajay Devgn's Baadshaho and Shah Rukh Khan's Raees. She loves action,
horror, psychological thrillers and some of these genres are ones she's already
tried. She'd love to do a comedy, or a superhero film. “I have no inhibitions
and I don’t really care if that means falling on my face or running into
people. I do that on a daily basis!” she says, laughing out loud. And even
though she has found a place for herself in the industry, she doesn’t believe
in calling anybody for work. It may be recalled that Aamir Khan had supported
Sunny when she was at the receiving end of harsh questions about her
professional choices in a TV interview. When she was asked if Aamir Khan would
want to work with her, the superstar had immediately tweeted that he'd be happy
to. “I don’t want to put pressure on people. They are doing amazing projects and
that’s the last thing I want to do that call them and say – ‘Hey you said that
you would like to work with me and I am still waiting [laughs]," says
Sunny. "I am not like that, I am happy in my space. If that happens in
life, then it's amazing. If that doesn’t, I can still call them...If they give
me special numbers in their movies that is fine, and if they say, 'I just need
you passing by', it is still okay. Until this moment, I have done everything
what I wanted to do.”
Not just films, motherhood has changed Sunny's
life too. The actress and her husband adopted a 21-month-old baby girl from an
orphanage in Latur (Maharashtra) in July 2017. “It has changed my life
completely. I am so excited every single day when she wakes up...feeding her,
changing her clothes, taking her for a walk, going to the park, dropping her to
school, cleaning up and doing everything she loves to do," Sunny says.
"Daniel and I had been wanting a baby for so long and we were ready for
it. Every single day is a joy.”
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