Sacred Games actor Elnaaz Norouzi revisited the accusations that she had made against a prominent Bollywood filmmaker during the #MeToo movement, and said that casting couch situations used to happen quite frequently prior to the movement.
In addition to Sacred Games, Elnaaz has appeared in the Israeli Apple TV+ spy series Tehran.
She most recently appeared in JugJugg Jeeyo, starring Varun Dhawan, Kiara Advani, Anil Kapoor and Neetu Kapoor
In an interview with Siddharth Kannan, the actor also spoke about her earlier accusations against the filmmaker, and said that he was trying to influence her to drop out of Sacred Games, and star in his film instead.
She thanked her lucky stars, since the film in question, she said, became the biggest flop of the year
Responding to a question about the casting couch being prevalent in the film industry, Elnaaz said, “Yes, and especially before the #MeToo movement, it used to happen a lot. It’s sobered down since then, because people are more cautious, maybe. Who knows, maybe it’s still happening now, and it’s worse for newcomers.”
Asked if it was ‘traumatic’ to relive the incident, she said, “Of course, but I feel that if I can help somebody by sharing my story, then it’s my duty to do it.
It was a very, very bad experience for me, not only because of what happened, but because he was telling me — I was between Sacred Games and his film — and he was telling me not to do Sacred Games and do his film instead.
"With all the behaviour and all the things that he was doing, I realised that this would be the wrong choice. Look at where Sacred Games took me, and that film was the biggest flop of that year" she said