Regena Cassandrra Interview: ‘Was Put Down’ in Industry

Regina Cassandra, a well-known actress, recently spoke about her experience in the Hindi-speaking film industry. How she faced many hurdles due to being a South Indian actress trying to make a name for herself in Bollywood. In a recent interview, she discussed facing negative perceptions and stereotypes. As a result of being a South Indian actress, despite the fact that she is highly qualified to work in Hindi films.

The comments that she made during the interview have sparked a lot of discussion across social media and entertainment industries. This makes it one of the hot topics in the current bollywood news debate.

From South Film Industry to Bollywood

Regina began working in the motion picture industry at the age of sixteen. She has worked for over ten years building a strong foundation in Tamil and Telugu films. She made her mainstream Hindi debut in 2019 with Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga and was therefore new to Bollywood.

Regina believes a film set is her home away from home. But entering into Bollywood has been a difficult one for her. She feels like people call her a “South Indian actress” too frequently. Also, that this label comes with certain assumptions about her ability as an artist. Regina also stated that she is fluent in reading, writing and speaking Hindi. She has always dubbed her own lines in all Hindi films. Despite this, she often feels as if she doesn’t belong in the Hindi-speaking film industry.

“Received Disrespect for Her Southern Background”

Looking back on her initial experiences, Regena shared that she faced both verbal and physical disrespect. She said that people often talked down to her in a way that made her feel small. Absolutely disrespected by people at times here in the north Indian film industry.

Although she understands that not everyone treats her that way, she admitted she doesn’t have the same level of faith in people like she used to because of those initial experiences. It took her quite a while to get over those feelings from her first experience in the commercial film industry in the North.

Over the years, she’s continued to work in multiple areas across all mediums. From appearing in a few of the hottest to competing against them (i.e., “Rocket Boys,” “Farzi”). Therefore, she possesses great versatility and strength.

She says that being a caring person contributes to her success in creating a sense of community wherever she works.

Battling Stereotypes as a Woman in Cinema

Regena is also addressing the larger issue of how female actors are stereotypically represented in feature films. Here the medium is a visual medium and often results in actors. Especially females, being categorized based on physical appearance.

She expressed her desire to have an opportunity to be able to diversify her roles and create a broader range of female characters rather than being limited to stereotypical female characters in feature films.

For her, choosing projects to act in goes beyond visibility, because she believes that it’s important to have both the ability to adapt and grow within each role you play.

Regena became involved in the industry when she was a teenager and continues to have the same perspective now at 35. She has seen her personal and professional growth over those years. While she describes herself as a “laid-back person”, she acknowledges that she still has dealt with incidents of bias and stereotyping that are embedded in her psyche.

The Journey of Learning and Unlearning

According to Regena, the experience of navigating through the entertainment industry is a lot more complicated than most people will ever know. She had to learn to balance her ability to think about and accept who she is, by means of unlearning and relearning through her diverse range of experiences.

Through her honest reflections, she has made evident that the dialogue about regional discriminating factors and gender role stereotyping in Indian cinema, is still alive and real today. These same issues are impacting the bollwood news latest discussions about equality and inclusion within Bollywood.