How Much Rounder? Radhika Apte On Being Asked To Enhance Bum & Breasts In South Film

In a candid and disquieting revelation, actress Radhika Apte has pulled back the curtain on the pervasive sexism and objectification faced by women in the Indian film industry, citing a particularly degrading incident where she was instructed to enhance her buttocks and breasts with padding.

This disclosure, made during an interview on the series Creator X Creator on SCREEN, serves as a stark indictment of the toxic environments that can fester on sets, especially for women working in isolation.

Apte, known for her powerful performances in projects like Sacred Games and Lust Stories, recounted a specific experience while shooting a South Indian film early in her career, a project she accepted out of financial necessity. She described a scenario where she was the solitary woman on set in a small town, stripped of her usual support system. "They said, 'No, you're not allowed to get your own team,'" she recalled, leaving her entirely reliant on a male crew provided by the production. It was within this vulnerable dynamic that the demand for "more padding" on her bum and breasts was issued.

She said, "Some of the films that I did, I had a really difficult time on those sets. I remember there was this one time, where I was the only woman on set. We were shooting in this small town. They wanted to add more padding on my bums and breasts. They were like, 'Amma, more padding!' I said, 'How much more padding?' How much rounder would you make somebody?"

This physical directive was not an isolated event but part of a broader culture of discomfort, which included lewd jokes and a constant, dehumanizing scrutiny of her body.

The actor, who describes herself as typically outspoken, conveyed the lasting psychological impact of this period. "It was actually traumatic," she admitted, stating her heart still races when thinking about it. "I never, ever want to be put in that situation again because I'll cry... I wouldn't want any woman to be in that position." Her testimony underscores how such professional settings can become spaces of profound power imbalance and humiliation, where an actor's physicality is commodified and altered to fit regressive stereotypes.

Significantly, Apte broadened the blame beyond just male perpetrators. She pointed a finger at the complicity of women in positions of power within the industry who, in her view, refuse to instigate change.

"There are so many women in such powerful positions who can make the change, but they won't. And I find that deeply disturbing," she asserted. This critique highlights a systemic failure where entrenched norms are perpetuated by gatekeepers regardless of gender, making systemic reform even more challenging. She further expressed difficulty in collaborating with many industry figures due to opaque personal and political stances, suggesting a climate where ethical alignment is often unclear.

This revelation about on-set sexism arrives close on the heels of Apte's recent public critique of another disturbing trend in contemporary cinema: excessive violence. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter India, the actor, currently on a break after the birth of her child, labeled the current surge of graphic gore in films as "deeply disturbing."

She questioned the artistic necessity of explicit brutality, arguing, "If I want to tell a story of a man who chopped off people, I don't need to see the chopping and horrible things that they are doing to the person. That is not storytelling." For Apte, this reliance on shock value is not only artistically bankrupt but socially corrosive, making her apprehensive about raising a child in a culture that consumes such imagery as entertainment.