Taapsee Pannu opened up on pay parity in Bollywood during ABP Network’s first ‘Ideas of India’ Summit event. The actress in conversation with Chetan Bhagat was speaking under ‘The Alpha Woman’ topic of discussion.

She said, “Yes, it’s very much there, but you have to understand that in Bollywood the number of “bums on seats” ((how many people are coming in theatres to watch the film) is the criteria for an actor’s pay.’  

She further added that “if an actress does a female-driven film, she’ll have to wait for word of mouth for the audience at the box-office while there are advanced bookings for male stars.”  

Taapsee also gave an example of screen counts of Alia Bhatt’s recently released film ‘Gangubai Kathiawadi.’ The ‘Thappad’ said that if every actress’ film gets the number of screen counts like that of ‘Gangubai Kathiawadi’ then actresses will get the same leverage in the film industry. ‘But now that ‘I am a producer, I understand the nitty gritties and how the film’s success is determined at the box-office,’ Taapsee further added.

Without taking Kangana’s name, Taapsee said that her comments used to hurt me earlier, because I used to feel that she too is not on my side from the film background. If you have reached here on the strength of your hard work, then it seemed – wow, something like this has to be done. But when you do not expect that kind of behavior from anyone because you have not done anything like that, then it seems strange.

Taapsi has done a variety of films so far in her career. Not only that, with superhit films like Pink and Thappad, the actress has proved that she doesn’t need any male actor to make her films a hit.