Neena Gupta opens up on losing roles because she didn’t know ‘rules of the game’, then learned to make 10 calls a day

Neena Gupta has proved her mettle in Bollywood but confessed that she was initially unaware of the rules of the game and ended up losing roles because it of. The actor revealed in her book that she kept waiting for filmmakers to call her back, when she should have been calling them herself.

Neena had written in her autobiography about how she lost out on an opportunity to work with noted filmmaker Shekhar Kapur just because she didn’t call him back. 

Talking about the incident to a leading daily, Neena said, “It’s like any industry, you cannot enter a business without knowing the rules of the game. As I said, I didn’t call Shekhar Kapur back because I thought he had told me that he’d call me back. If there was somebody who was advising me, I’d not have missed the opportunity.”

“Later on, I was advised to write down the names of people to call in a week, and to make at least 10 calls every day, and to keep calling till there is a response. Earlier, I didn’t know all this,” she added. 

Neena made headlines a few years ago, when she posted an Instagram message asking for work. The incident was recreated in the semi-fictionalised show Masaba Masaba.

Also read: Neena Gupta says she took up ‘rubbish work’ in films for money: ‘One film comes a lot on TV and I cringe’

Neena is now all set to return with the second season of the show Panchayat. She also has a few films in the pipeline, including Goodbye and Uunchai. 

Neena was recently seen in Arjun Kapoor and Rakul Preet Singh-starre, Sardar Ka Grandson, in which she played the matriarch of a Punjabi family.