'They question your waist, chest size': Surveen Chawla breaks silence on casting couch

Actress Surveen Chawla, who will next be seen in Netflix's 'Decoupled' alongside R Madhavan, has carved a niche for herself in the film industry but the journey to making a career in acting didn't come easily to her. In a recent interview, Surveen opened up about how she had to face the casting couch during her initial days in the film industry. She also spoke about how women are made to question their bodies, their waist and chest sizes. 

In an interview with radio-host Siddharth Kanan, when Surveen was questioned about the time she was warned during a meeting for a film that she weighed 56 kilos, the actress recalled the meeting and said she remembers being questioned about her waist size and chest size in the first meeting itself. 

"Ya, this was actually my first film meeting in Bombay that I went for. So I was doing television and then I went for this first meeting. You know it's their job to kind of get you in the space where you question yourself. And this happens to most women also where their appearance is questioned, their weight is questioned, what is your waist size is questioned, what is your chest size is questioned."

She added, "It's just insane. What are the parameters for being here? What are they? It was a period where it, alongside all the casting couch that went on with it and then a lot from the south (film industry) actually and it was quite a difficult period...It was there but I don't think those are not the right parameters that define you or make you believe or disbelieve on where you want to be or where you are at."

She then spoke about how we, as a society, have graduated and are talking about mental health, body shaming, rejections openly, in public forums. 

For the unversed, Surveen made her film debut with a Kannada film titled Paramesha Panwala in 2008. She is a popular star in the Punjabi film industry and has done a lot of work in Bollywood and TV. Her body of work includes films like Hate Story 2 (2014), Parched (2015), and Ugly (2013) and TV shows such as Kasautii Zindagii Kay, Kahiin Toh Hoga and Kajjal among others. She also appeared in the critically-acclaimed web series Sacred Games.