Tanuja says film industry now more ‘corporate’ instead of being a family: ‘In our time, filmwaala were not Hindu, Muslim…’

Veteran actor Tanuja feels that that the film industry is not homogeneous like it used to be in the earlier days and is more compartmentalised now. The actor, who was last seen in the story ‘Baai’ as part of the Modern Love Mumbai anthology, recalled how the whole industry used to unite to help a person and pool in their resources.
Speaking to News18, Tanuja opened up about the changes that she has seen in the industry over the past few decades. “There has to be progress. The only sad thing that has happened in this progress is that instead of being a family, we have become corporate, and when you become corporate then it becomes very compartmentalized. Whereas, in our time, filmwaala bas filmwaala tha… Not a Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, just filmwaala.”

She added, “Even if it was a watchman, or a light-man, if that person was not well or needed help, the industry used to come together and we used to pool in together and help this person because he was a filmwaala. In today’s generation – of course change had to come and I am not saying anything bad about this change – I am just saying that it would be nice if it would be the same, which it is not.” Yet as she mentioned later, nothing changes for an actor, who is ‘alive forever’. She added there is no ‘formula’. “For me, every day I face the camera, for any role I do, is a new day and a new experience. So I don’t know what I am going to do in that sequence,” she said.
Directed Hansal Mehta, ‘Baai’ saw Prateek Gandhi playing closeted gay man, trying hard to convey his truth to his grandmother, who he lovingly calls Baai, played Tanuja. Talking about his experience working with Tanuja, Pratik had told Indian Express,  “She is what charisma is described as. She just lights up the screen. The first scene that we had together, we had to go up almost four flights of stairs. The building was without a lift and quite old, with steep stairs. I thought she must have got tired but as the camera started rolling, her energy level was on a different high. I just couldn’t take my eyes off her.”
Baai was Tanuja’s first film in six years after starring in Konkona Sen’s A Death In The Gunj.