Shefali Shah says crew is relieved she goes home on time amid work hour debate: ‘After 3 decades I can say I need to go’

While promoting her upcoming web series Delhi Crime 3, Shefali Shah spoke about the debate around work hours and said this.

Ever since Deepika Padukone walked out of Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Spirit and later Nag Ashwin’s Kalki 2898 AD sequel over a lack of structured working hours, the debate refuses to die down. Shefali Shah, who is busy promoting her upcoming web series, Delhi Crime 3, agrees with Deepika that there needs to be a work environment that is conducive for both the actors and the crew.

Shefali Shah was candid that there need to be structured working hours in the film industry.

Shefali Shah on structured work hours

Shefali mentioned to PTI that, after working in the film industry for three decades, she is now in a position to say, “I want to go home.” She said, “After all these years, I can say, ‘I need to go home’. We are very reasonable actors; we are not badly behaved, and we understand when. It's like we’ve to finish this, we get that. But you can't make that a norm (to not have work hours).”

The actor also mentioned that an actor’s daily routine is a ‘relentless cycle’ of waking up, commuting to the set for over an hour, working for unspecified hours and returning home. She remarked how she cannot just say, “I’m tired. Today, can I just do 50%?” and get on with it, mentioning how it’s fair to have structured work hours. As much as she loves being on set, the actor noted that exhaustion inevitably sets in.

Also mentioning how important such working hours are for the crew, Shefali said, “Recently, on a film I did, I left at a time when I was supposed to, and the crew, the ADs said, ‘Thank God, she leaves, so that we get to leave; otherwise, we are here forever.’”

Shefali’s co-star, Sayani Gupta, also mentioned to the news agency that she believes actors need to stand up for the crew, pointing out that in Kolkata, they work eight-hour shifts. Huma Qureshi, however, remarked that she doesn’t mind putting in the extra hours if it means that the makers might incur financial losses otherwise.

Recent work

Season 3 of Delhi Crime will be released on Netflix on November 13. Shefali has a recurring role as DCP Vartika Chaturvedi on the show. She last starred in the 2023 film Three of Us and the 2022 JioHotstar web series, Human.