A-list actresses don’t want to play mother on screen: Hindi Medium director

In Hindi Medium, Pakistani actor Saba Qamar features alongside Irrfan Khan as his wife and a mother of a young girl.

Filmmaker Saket Chaudhary says most of the established actresses in Bollywood are not willing to play the role of a mother on the screen. In his upcoming directorial Hindi Medium, Pakistani actor Saba Qamar features alongside Irrfan Khan as his wife and a mother of a young girl. “You look for a certain person in the actor, who can fit into the character. There are a lot of established actresses who don’t want to play a mother. There was that issue. I had that experience from Shaadi Ke Side Effects,” said Saket.

Pakistani actor Saba Qamar makes her Bollywood debut opposite Irrfan Khan in Hindi Medium.

Saket said he faced a similar problem when he was planning for the sequel of Pyaar Ke Side Effects, which released in 2006. The director says the follow up Shaadi Ke Side Effects took him nearly eight years to finalise the female lead as not many actors were willing to take up the role of a mother in the movie. It was eventually played by Vidya Balan.

“The seven-eight year long gap happened in the film because of series of accidents. There was this whole major casting problem that we were going through which delayed the film. I had faced this problem a lot in casting that film. Vidya was very brave. She wasn’t one of those actresses who has an issue but others did have that. I didn’t want to get into that loop again with Hindi Medium,” he says.

In Saba, who will be making her Bollywood debut with the film, Saket found traits which were “exactly similar” to what he wanted in the role.

However, after the Uri attacks when MNS threatened to stall the release of Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, Saket says the film’s team was worried as they were close to finish the shoot. “It did concern us. When we cast Saba, things were fine and we wanted the best actor. We were shooting in Delhi and there was one day of shoot left when this trouble started. We were that close. We finished our work and hoped things would improve,” he says.

The film is scheduled to release on May 12.