Sargun Mehta: There’s no paparazzi culture in Punjabi cinema and I am very happy

While public appearances seem to be the way to get popular now, actress Sargun Mehta says that this culture doesn’t exist in the Punjabi industry. She says that the Punjabi industry is taking time to recover its losses and again become popular with good content. “Every industry takes time to evolve. Punjabi cinema was very popular once and then it completely shut down. There was a lull for about 10-12 years and it picked up again in the last 7-8 years. I guess it was the trust of the audience also and now, we are building it every day. We are making them feel that we’re doing good work just like other industries. You have to get the audience back. There was a time when people from Punjab wouldn’t watch Punjabi films. They preferred Hindi and even South languages too. We had to also move with time, get the quality up, and budget right for the audience to come back to trust us and watch our films,” she says.

She adds, “There’s no paparazzi culture in Punjabi and I am very happy (laughs). I am somebody who never enjoys that as I believe I am never dressed appropriately. I am always in my tracksuit literally lazing around when I am not shooting. I want people to know and talk about me in terms of my work and not how I walked out of my gym, the airport, etc. If somebody clicks me, that’s fine but it never really excites me.”

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Talking about her process of taking on a role, she says, “It is definitely not easy but I don’t take the pressure of who is going to be my co-star and who will be directing the film. I disconnect from everything and focus only on the script and whether it excites me. If it does, it is a yes otherwise no matter who’s in the film, I would never do it. Many told me to not do a film titled Moh because it wouldn’t work in theatres but I chose to say yes to it because I wanted to do a film like that. Some decisions might work, and some won’t but every thing you do will be worth it. I am happy with the choices I made.”

Meanwhile the actress was seen in the Bollywood film Cuttputlli. She says, “Despite having a brief role, I had something to do in Cuttputlli which is why I did it. The film also had a shade people never saw me in. If you expect me to do a film where I have to just be good pretty and dance, I am bound to get bored and that will be reflected in my performance. No matter how big the platform is, I won’t do what doesn’t excite me. I won’t do something in which I won’t shine.”