Back then, Madhuri Dixit dominated the music industry and the box office. The actress has successfully taken on new projects since returning from the US, including this year’s The Fame Game web series from Netflix. She is now working on her debut record, The Film Star. The actress recently talked with Hindustan Times, in which she looked back on her career in Bollywood.
Madhuri commented on how things have fundamentally changed. She said, “Every generation has different difficulties in being a film star. When we started, this industry was very disorganised. It was not organised at all like the way shootings used to happen, like films used to take a year and a half to seven years sometimes to make. Nothing was planned. We just knew what the story was going to be. But we didn’t know the dialogues or when it was being shot. It was all very haphazard. However, we used to make good firms still.”
She continued by pointing out how organised the filmmaking process is today. “Every project has a budget, and we know the number of shooting days. The outfits, the script, and your appearance are all prepared, and there has been preparation. Then we start discussing it.” According to Madhuri, actors have a significant advantage in this type of arrangement, and women are commonplace on movie sets.
“They (actors) can be completely consumed by the movie they are doing. We used to do like three or five films at the same time. So, we used to be busy doing double or triple daily shifts. Today, it is much more organised. When we went for outdoor shoots, we didn’t have vans or anything. That was another difficulty at that time. As a woman, when we used to walk on the set, the only women in the room used to be me, my co-stars, and hairdressers. That’s it. Now, when I walk on a set, there are women everywhere in all the departments who made strides, whether it’s photography, the camera person or the DOP. Women are everywhere, which is amazing to see writers, and directors doing such brilliant work,” Madhuri added.
