‘Jubilee Talkies’ Khushi Dubey calls for better conditions on TV sets for female actors

Actress Khushi Dubey, who started her acting career as a child artist, is playing the lead in Sony TV’s recently-launched serial, ‘Jubilee Talkies’. In an exclusive interview Adgully, Khushi Dubey talks about essaying the role of a Marathi girl on the screen, how real talent and stories are being promoted on TV, working conditions for actresses on the sets, and more.

Is there any particular reason why you chose to do ‘Jubilee Talkies’?

I think they are very less Bollywood-based shows on TV. It is a very dreamy love story. It is nothing like the conventional TV shows that we have seen. It is more like a film and it is a Bollywood-based, beautifully written, passionate love story. It is very unpredictable, unlike most of the TV shows which are very predictable. I have a simple look in the show, but there is a lot to perform. It is a story of two people who are poles apart. We have such legendary people on board like Sanjay Narvekar Sir and Asawari Joshi madam. I recently shot an intense scene with Sanjay sir and I am 110% sure it is going to be viral. I am into the media line. But I have to play like a person who doesn’t know anything about the media line. She owns a single screen cinema, called Sangam Cinema, but things go south for her. It is a journey of single screen cinema and people love Bollywood, so we want to show all that.

You are playing a Marathi girl. How did you work on your dialect?

I was born in Uttar Pradesh, but I was brought up in Mumbai. But unfortunately I don’t know the Marathi language. There are some Marathi sentences in the script. My co-star Asawari ma’am has helped me out with the Marathi language, especially getting pronunciation right.

After working in the industry for some years, do you feel that now it has come to a point where concepts and stories become realistic?

Yes, of course, not just concepts, people are favouring realistic acting and promoting it too. People are coming up with unconventional stories. There are web series like ‘Mirzapur’. More biopics are being made. I’m happy that more than glamour, real talent is getting noticed. I feel that quite a few of our best actors are not the best looking, but it is their acting which makes them look beautiful and handsome on screen. I’m glad to be a part of ‘Jubilee Talkies’. I really hope that I get to do more such shows which are performance-oriented.

Television gives you fame and name, but at times the conditions on the set are far from perfect for actors. Have you experienced that and what are your thoughts on it?

Yes, of course. There are a lot of things that actors don’t get – in terms of working conditions, and even working hours. I feel that things can be better especially in the TV industry, after all, we are also human beings. We’ve seen in movies and series that there is always some gap before a sequel is released, so things are comparatively better than TV, where you are shooting for 12 hours continuously and there are literally no breaks for us, especially for the leads. So, I think there can be a bit of a gap. I don’t know how they can do it, but there can be a little bit more relaxed culture on the sets, at least for female actors, because we have our own biological problems. I think there should be less discrimination between male and female actors.

Also Read: Sony Entertainment Television presents a new romantic show Jubilee Talkies