Rani Mukerji reflected on balancing motherhood and acting, recalling how she managed Hichki shoots around her daughter Adira’s needs. She said flexible working hours in films depend on mutual agreement between actors and producers
Rani Mukerji
After it was reported that Deepika Padukone walked out of Sandeep Reddy Vanga's film for demanding an 8-hour work shift, there has been a debate on the topic. Now, actress Rani Mukerji has also weighed in on the 8-hour shift demand while reflecting on her own journey of balancing work and motherhood. Deepika's exit from Sandeep Reddy Vanga's upcoming film Spirit, starring Prabhas, over a reported request for an eight-hour workday sparked industry-wide conversations on work-life balance in cinema.
Rani on balancing parenthood and shooting
Rani Mukerji has been a part of the film industry for a long time and is among the most talented artists in the industry. During a chat with ANI, Rani recalled shooting for the film Hichki when her daughter Adira was 14 months old. "When I did 'Hichki', Adira was 14 months old, and I was still breastfeeding her, so I had to pump the milk and go in the morning, and I was shooting in a college in town."
The National Award-winning actress elaborated how her schedule was carefully designed around her daughter's needs. "From my house in the suburbs in Juhu to that place, and the traffic takes about two hours. So I kind of made it a thing where in the morning I would leave at 6:30 after expressing my milk and I would shoot. My first shot used to be at 8 in the morning and I used to wrap up everything by 12:30-1. My unit and my director, they were so planned that for those 6-7 hours I used to finish my shoot and before the traffic would start in town, I used to be home by 3. And I did my film like that," she added.
She emphasised that flexible hours have always been based on mutual understanding. "These things are up in conversation today because maybe people are discussing it outside. But this has been the norm with all professions. I've also done it where I have worked for certain hours. If the producer's okay with it, you go ahead with the film. If the producer's not okay with it, you don't do the film. So it's also a choice. Nobody is forcing anything on anybody," she remarked.
Rani Mukerji on taking break after embracing motherhood
The Ghulam actor further discussed taking a break from films to focus on raising her daughter and also spoke about the fact that women actors have to maintain this work-life balance; however, men are not forced to do the same in the industry.
"Men don't have to go through a physical transformation. Additionally, I think we undergo a physical transformation, along with our emotional transformation, as we become mothers. And I'm very happy being a woman. I would not change this for the world because I think men have really got left out on this beautiful, I would say, amazing... amazing thing that we women go through is giving birth to a child. You know, and that's the closest we come to God, I think. You know, because we are creating a life. And God creates life. And mothers, in those nine months, they become closest to God because they are creating life inside of them. And that beautiful thing, men will never understand. And I feel sorry for them."
She added, "I feel it's like okay, when they say that God probably entrusted us with having children, imagine if men had to have children they would drive people mad. Right now, they have lot of time in their hand, that's why they're having wars. If they had to have children, maybe there would be no war in the world. Because they would be busy just preparing for the baby.."
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