Raveena Tandon Highlights Persistent Gender Pay Gap in Indian Film Industry
todayinheadlines.com · post 59947 · 2026-06-30
LONDON — Raveena Tandon is in London shooting an OTT series. She is also, apparently, still fighting a pay fight that should have been settled decades ago. The actress, whose career spans the slapstick comedies of the 1990s and the streaming dramas of today, said something blunt in a recent interview: heroes fly private.
Heroines don’t even make the same money. She did not name names.
She did not have to. The math is the math. A male assistant director and a female assistant director get the same pay.
That is equity, and it exists at the entry level. But on screen, where the cameras roll and the billing matters, the gap snaps back.
Heroes get private chartered planes. Heroines get less. The difference is not in the job description.
It is in the paycheck. Tandon’s latest release is Welcome To The Jungle, a hero-driven mainstream comedy with an ensemble of 32 actors. She called it a crazy ride.
She also noted that the funny lines still go to the heroes. The writing is better than it used to be.
The roles have more agency. But the best material, the stuff that gets the laughs and the attention, still tilts male. That disparity extends straight to the bank account.
She is proud of the industry’s progress. She said so directly.
“I’m very proud of our Hindi film industry where today, I see women making inroads into every field of expertise, even what were once male-dominated bastions.” That is real. Women are directors, producers, cinematographers, writers. They are breaking in where they were locked out.
But the trend underneath that pride is stubborn. The financial ceiling for women on screen stays lower. The shift is subtle.
It is not a door slammed. It is a door left slightly ajar while the men walk through first.
Tandon has been in the business long enough to see both sides. She did her early hits — Andaz Apna Apna, Bade Miyan Chote Miyan — when madcap comedies were the thing. She said she had to do a lot of unlearning for Welcome To The Jungle.
The style of filmmaking has changed that much. The pay gap has not.
She credited her co-stars — Suniel Shetty, Akshay Kumar, Arshad Warsi, Paresh Rawal, Johny Lever, Rajpal Yadav, Jacqueline Fernandez, Disha Patani — for making the shoot easy. She gave a nod to director Ahmed Khan. The film sounds like a good time.
But the interview was not about the film. It was about the money. The gap persists even as women make inroads into every field.
That is the contradiction. The assistant directors are paid equally.
The heroines are not. The industry evolves. The hierarchy holds.
Tandon did not offer a solution. She stated the fact.
Heroes get private planes. Heroines get less. That is the news.