Regina Cassandra spills beans on Bollywood's acceptability of South actors: 'Now, they don't have a choice'

Regina Cassandra admitted that Bollywood initially may not have accepted South actors, but now they have no choice but to embrace their talent.

Earlier, there was a clear demarcation between South and North Indian films. But, in recent years, Bollywood has seen an increasing influx of South actors. Numerous South Indian films have seen immense success with great audience acceptability. Slowly, the stardom of these South actors was accepted, and they began to be seen in Hindi films.

Regina Cassandra revealed how Bollywood initially looked down upon South actors by being 'snooty', but now when South films are becoming hit, Bollywood has no choice.

This fluid intermingling demonstrated how two very different movie industries came together as actors began to collaborate.

However according to South Indian actor Regina Cassandra, this welcoming acceptance hasn’t always been the norm. The actor opened up on CNN-News 18 Showsha, where she revealed about the previous perception of South Indian actors in Bollywood.

Bollywood was ‘snooty’

In the Showsha interview, when Regina was asked how welcoming Bollywood is of South actors, she said, “Now, they don’t have a choice. Before… pretty snooty. If they knew that you were from the South. Mainly, I don’t know if it was because language was a barrier. But for me, it never was, so. And I don’t look like a South Indian. I don’t know if all of these things worked in my favour. But I think now it’s just become, like, they need people from the South, especially after the pandemic hit. They needed actors from the South for a bigger audience.”

This shows that despite the initial hesitation earlier on, Bollywood is aware of the talent pool in the South which they tap into to make the movies bankable and also reach out to the wider audience. Regina puts it as now ‘Bollywood doesn’t have a choice' implying that it's evolving now, to stay relevant.

More about Regina

Regina worked in both Tamil and Telugu films before. Her next upcoming movie is an action thriller film Vidaamuyarchi which is set to release on February 6.

She began her career with a supporting role in the Tamil film Kanda Naal Mudhal (2005) and gained widespread recognition with her lead role in the Telugu film Siva Manasulo Sruthi (2012).