Avika Gor, a television actor best known for portraying Anandi in Balika Vadhu from 2008 to 2010, has opened up about being abruptly replaced from Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan and Antim by Salman Khan Films.
The opportunity offered itself twice in two films featuring Salman Khan. However, the actor’s production team decided to cast someone else at the last minute, a day before she was meant to sign the contract, according to Gor, who is ready to make her first significant Bollywood debut.
Avika states in an interview with Siddharth Kannan, referring to Ayush Sharma’s 2021 actioner Antim: The Final Truth, “I had faced something similar with the same team, where two weeks before the film, they called, and they said they cast someone else. But this happens. At the end of the day, it’s their call, and it’s okay. They must have had their reasons; they know better.”
Avika noted in the same interview that the Telugu film industry is much more affected by nepotism than the Hindi film industry, even though she did not blame nepotism for her replacement.
Avika says the Telugu industry is given a clean chit while Bollywood is consistently criticized for nepotism. She said, “A bias has been created over time about Bollywood and Hindi films that we will judge whatever they make…a phase had come when many South films were remade, so people thought we only copy films. I think it’s all about that bias.”
With Uyyala Jampala (2013), Avika made her Telugu film debut. She then appeared in Ekkadiki Pothavu Chinnavada, Cinema Choopistha Mava, Lakshmi Raave Maa Intiki, Thanu Nenu, and Raju Gari Gadhi 3. She will be making her Bollywood debut with the horror movie 1920 Horrors Of The Heart. On June 23, the film, which is being helmed by Krishna Bhatt, the daughter of Vikram Bhatt, will open in theatres.
Source: Interview with Siddharth Kannan
