“I’ve taken it as a time for reflection and to spend time with my mom and dad. It was definitely hard in the beginning. Every extension came with anxiety and stress, but slowly I managed to be active on social media and do all my classes for my projects online. But now, I’m ready and craving to go back to work,” says actor Amyra Dastur.

The 27-year-old, made her debut in 2013 with Manish Tiwary’s Isaaq, says that “Bollywood is India’s favourite scapegoat”. “If anything bad happens, then automatically Bollywood gets the blame. Yes, there are issues in our Industry but there are issues everywhere. The only problem we face is that our lives are public which makes people think they have the right to comment about it. In other words, we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t,” she says.  

About the ongoing insider-outsider debate and nepotism, Dastur says, “As an outsider it definitely hurts to see star kids getting roles you feel they haven’t earned. But you can’t hold it against them. If you’re given an advantage in life then you should capitalise on it. Ultimately, the audience decides and if they like someone then they themselves will follow them and increase the persons popularity. Unfortunately, we’re so stuck on hating star kids that we don’t realise if the audience channels that hate into kindness for promoting outsiders, it would change the game.”

Ask her if favouritism and groupism exists in the industry, and she says, “Yes, it does. But it exists in every industry. We don’t live in a black and white world. There are favourites and there is groupism which you need to deal with. The boycotting is something that I don’t agree with and I believe it needs to be tackled. You can have your favourites but you shouldn’t put someone down because they don’t adhere to your opinions. That’s what the problem is, not favouritism but the boycotting and catty environment. Putting people down has become so easy lately with social media or blind items or even in film criticism. These kinds of personal attacks cause major mental trauma and it needs to be filtered and stopped.”