Neha Dhupia has been talking about how her second pregnancy was woven into the plot of her latest film A Thursday. The actress said that by the time she got around to shooting the film, she was expecting her son Guriq with husband Angad Bedi. The makers then changed the script to make her a pregnant police officer in the film.
While the makers of A Thursday embraced her pregnancy with open arms, Neha did not get the same response everywhere. She recently revealed in an interview that she got fired from a few projects after disclosing the news of her first pregnancy. Neha welcomed her first child, daughter Mehr, in 2018.
“During Mehr’s time, I had to create work. I did my own podcasts and other non-fiction television shows. I was being myself because being pregnant wasn’t a problem at all. I always worked right to the end. But the industry changes. Before I announced my pregnancy, I was a part of a few projects. Did I get fired from those projects? Yes, I did. Was anything wrong with it? The physicality changes and then you don’t want to play the character or the people who hired you don’t want you to look like that… so be it,” she told India.com.
Neha plays the role of a strong-headed pregnant cop trying to trace an intelligent playschool teacher, Naina Jaiswal (Yami Gautam) who takes 16 toddlers in a school hostage one day. Interestingly, when Neha was finalised for the role of ACP Catherine Alvarez, she was not expecting a baby, but by the time the film went on floors, she got pregnant with her son.
“Behzad (Khambatta, director) instantly thought that I would be great for this part and I also instantly thought I would want to work with this director so that chemistry fell into place,” Neha told News18. “And then, of course, hearing Yami playing such an interesting role, it kind of all fell into place till the point that I was in a place when I was not pregnant when I was cast for the part and then 7 months later I met Behzad because it was a lockdown and we couldn’t shoot, it was the second wave and I was pregnant and I told him, ‘Behzad this is what it is. What do you want to do?’ He didn’t even bat an eyelid.”
Neha lauds Behzad and producer Ronnie Screwvala for unflinchingly backing her. “You need changemakers like these,” Neha added. “One is as women, as moms, or as pregnant women, we want to get back to work and the other is the one creating these opportunities, so I tip my hat to all of them (Behzad and Ronnie).”
