People want to know about the hero first, then the heroine: Divya Dutta

Divya feels there is risk of getting “stereotyped” by the audience depending on the role an actress is playing with a male star in a film.

Women centric films may have struck gold at the box office lately, but Divya Dutta says the masses are still concerned about knowing the “hero” of a film. “We are a male dominated society where we want to know ‘who is the hero of the film?’. I am talking about the masses who first ask that and then, ‘oh so who’s the heroine?’. The heroine is always the plus. But a hero defines everyone’s characters or roles in the industry,” said Divya.

Divya Dutta will next be seen in Traffic. (PTI Photo)

Dutta, who carved a niche for herself by working in a variety of films like Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, Veer-Zaara and Special 26, feels there is risk of getting “stereotyped” by the audience depending on the role an actress is playing with a male star in a film. “You play a heroine once with a top hero, even if you don’t act for a long time, or change roles, you will always be the heroine because you worked with a star. You were opposite him,” she said.

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“Even if you play a villain in a film, where you are not right to the man, you will always be a villain. You will be offered fifty thousand roles which are only that because you set an example by playing a negative character against the hero.”

The 38-year-old actor, however, says even though there is a classification of male and female oriented films in the audience’s minds, if they are served with a good movie, they will lap it up irrespectively. “There is a major section of the audience who consider films male and female oriented. Having said that, if you give them a nice commercial film with a heroine oriented subject, then will enjoy that too. It’s not like there is ‘phase’ now.”

Watch: Divya Dutta, Farhan Akhtar in Bhaag Milkha Bhaag making

Divya will be next seen in the upcoming Manoj Bajpayee-starrer Traffic which releases on May 6.

Though Divya has mostly associated herself with off-beat films like The Last Lear, Joggers’ Park and Welcome to Sajjanpur, Divya also appeared alongside Sunny Leone in Ragini MMS 2.

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Dutta says she does not have any soft-spot for a particular genre. “Films are offered to you by dozen, everyday. What you choose out of those, is all heart and intrutive...If I feel I am going to enjoy it, then great. I’ve left the biggest of films because something inside didn’t feel right. Genres don’t matter to me at all,” she said.

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