Tamannaah Bhatia believes that upskilling is something actors need to engage in as well. During the promotions of her new show, Do You Wanna Partner, the actor spoke to Hindustan Times about everything from the show to actors’ choices.

People feel they do you a favour by listening to you

The show deals with women entrepreneurs not being taken seriously, something that Tamannaah says all women have faced in some form or another. “People often think they are doing you some sort of a favour,” Tamannaah says, recounting an anecdote about how a person she was trying to hire kept patronising her. “I didn’t hire him in the end,” she says, adding, “But people do this all the time, and then they act like they should be applauded for showing support in this manner.”

Actors can’t pity themselves

The conversation moves to opportunities for female actors. Both the leads in Do You Wanna Partner – Tamannaah and Diana Penty – are in their late 30s. A couple of decades ago, roles were hardly being written for women of that age in Indian cinema. A lot may have changed, but many actors are still far from getting strong author-backed roles after a certain age. But Tamannaah doesn’t believe in cribbing about it. “As actors, it’s also about upping your game,” she says, “Sometimes, there is too much of a pity party going on about what I didn’t get. As actors, we need to constantly evolve and up our game.”

The actor says that unless actors evolve and acquire new skills, they will fail to stay relevant. “At this age, I expect to get certain characters. Ten years down the line, if I want the same kind of work or even a different kind of work, I have to be that good that it is written for me. Actors have to command that by bringing something new to the table, especially with the times we are in, where we don’t know what will do well. Evolution is the only way we can evade that,” says Tamannaah.

Do You Wanna Partner is streaming on Prime Video.