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After Deepika Padukone exited two major South films —–Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Spirit and Ashwin's kalki 2898 ad sequel — she became the target of brutal trolling over her demand for an eight-hour work shift after becoming a mother. Many industry personalities weighed in on the debate; while some supported her, others called her demand “unreasonable” and “entitled.” What many don’t realise, however, is that this wasn’t the first time the Om Shanti Om actor raised such an issue or advocated for structured work hours in the film industry.
Deepika’s old interview on fixing work hours for crew
Recently, an old interview of Deepika with Film Companion from 2022 has been going viral, where she emphasises the need to fix working hours, especially for a film’s crew. She also spoke about compensating them for overtime and providing nutritious food on sets.
In the clip, she says, “I will begin with the hours that we work, especially for the crew. There is this sense that if you make people work extra work over time and continuously, you get it done faster. My thinking is the exact opposite — if you give people enough downtime and rest, they come back with better energy. That helps them work faster and the quality of the output is far better. One thing I could do differently is this.”
‘Crew must be compensated for overtime’
The actor also spoke about the need to compensate crew members who work overtime. She said, “Step 2 is to be compensated for overtime. Actors still feel it is my film at the end of the day…Actors, at the end of the day, are going to walk away with the awards and the rewards, and so do the directors and everyone above board. But I think the crew come in much earlier and they leave much later. So, there would be some days where you would do overtime and some technical issues or something else might happen, but then we need to find a mechanism that they are at least compensated for the overtime, on the hourly basis.”
‘Crew must be provided with nutritious food and mental health counselling’
Talking about the overall well-being of the crew, Deepika also underlined the importance of serving them healthy food and ensuring mental health support on set. She said, “Number 3 – I think the kind of food that the crew is served, nutritious food needs to be served to them. This is a very small thing, but I feel that if you keep the crew happy and feed them well, they will go out of their way. The other thing that I want to do is to have a mental health expert on the set for anybody for actor or technicians. Or least share a helpline number of a consultant to everyone whom they can talk to.”
Deepika’s befitting response to haters
For the unversed, after Deepika’s exit from both projects, the makers took indirect digs at her on social media. While Sandeep Reddy Vanga accused her of “sabotaging” his film, the Kalki 2898 AD team stated that their project “deserves that commitment.” Deepika remained silent in the aftermath of these comments but recently decided to respond during an interview with CNBC-TV18.
Without naming anyone, she said, “I’m okay with challenging the status quo. I’ve always been like that since I was a child. If I can see that something can be different or better, even if there are systems that are age old, I’m okay to ruffle those feathers I’m okay being abused at. I can very easily cut out the noise.”
