The actress, soon to appear in Netflix's Akka opposite Keerthy Suresh, says male stars with paunches get a pass that fit, trained actresses don't.
Radhika Apte isn't having it. Asked about the trolling Alia Bhatt copped over her physique and her fitness for the action film Alpha, Apte went straight at the hypocrisy of it.
"Your actors who are doing action have massive paunches and all, and Alia is bloody fit. I mean, please," Apte told India Today, in comments reported by The Free Press Journal.
It's a fair hit. Alpha, which released on July 3 and starred Bhatt alongside Sharvari, Anil Kapoor and Bobby Deol, drew its share of online sniping about whether Bhatt looked the part for an action heroine. Male leads doing far less demanding stunt work rarely face the same scrutiny of their bodies, and Apte's point lands because it's one most people watching Hindi cinema already know but rarely say out loud.
Apte didn't stop at the physical. She tied the pile-on to something bigger, the discomfort a lot of Indian households still have with women claiming space, literally and otherwise.
"Very few people are comfortable with the freedom that their daughters are seeking, or rather, rightfully claiming. I think that also reflects in the kind of content people watch. That's my guess," she said.
It's a reasonable theory. A chunk of the audience still wants actresses to look a certain way, dress a certain way, marry by a certain age, and an action film that puts a woman front and centre, sweating and throwing punches, rubs up against that comfort zone. The trolling of Bhatt's fitness, in that reading, isn't really about fitness at all.
The Free Press Journal's own review of Alpha gave it three stars, calling it a watchable action entertainer while warning fans not to measure it against Dhurandhar, which released around the same time and invited constant comparison.
Apte, for her part, has her own project to worry about. She's set to star alongside Keerthy Suresh in Netflix's upcoming series Akka, with Suresh in the lead role. Details on the show's premise and release date haven't been made public yet, so expect more on Akka as Netflix moves closer to a launch window.
For now, the Alpha conversation isn't going away either. Bhatt hasn't responded publicly to the trolling, and whether Apte's comments shift the conversation around how female action stars get evaluated remains to be seen the next time a woman headlines a stunt-heavy film in Bollywood.
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