Taapsee Pannu recalls embarrassing demand to wear padded bra in South films
Taapsee Pannu opened up about some of the uncomfortable realities that female actors have to face at times in southern cinema. He said that filmmakers often seek to fulfill the perceived fantasies of the audience.
Actress Taapsee Pannu, who has worked in Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam films apart from Hindi films, recently talked about the uncomfortable expectations placed on female actors in the South. She said that directors in the Tamil and Telugu industries sometimes request heroines to wear padded bras to enhance their physical presence in front of the camera.
Taapsee said in an interview Shubhankar Mishra For his YouTube podcast, highlighted how these demands are problematic because they intentionally draw the audience’s attention to the body rather than the performance.
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During the conversation, he was asked why Bhojpuri and South Indian cinema pay so much attention to the navel in song sequences. In response, Taapsee admitted that she herself has often questioned the logic behind this trend. She noted that while South Indian films often place visual emphasis on the navel with their cinematography, Hindi cinema usually focuses more on cleavage.
“Even in the South it is said to wear a padded bra. And the problem is that the director should speak to whom on the set, this is because there are only one or two girls on the set. Now he tells the AD (Assistant Director), then the AD tells the styling team or the sister of the hair team, then he comes and tells the girl. (In the South, they sometimes say, ‘Wear a padded bra.’ The problem then becomes who the director should tell this to on the set, since there are usually only one or two women present. So the director tells the assistant director, the AD then passes it on to a female member of the styling team or hair team, and eventually the message gets to the actor.)” Asi the actor said.
He continued: “And just imagine how embarrassing it would be on the sets of a song shoot, who had to get up in the middle and everyone was watching, what difference did it make? Then comes that we can’t tell the difference, so go back now, this is what happens (Just imagine how embarrassing that would be on set during a song shoot – someone has to get up and leave in the middle while everyone watches, wondering what difference it made. Then they say they still don’t see any difference, so you’re asked to go back and change again. That’s what happens).”
The actor felt that directors often highlight certain physical features of female actors because they believe it satisfies the audience’s fantasies and increases attractiveness.
Taapsee was recently seen in director Anubhav Sinha’s hard-hitting drama. Asi. This film marks the third collaboration between Taapsee and Anubhav. The two had previously worked together for critically acclaimed films slap And country.
India Today in its review Asiwrote, “You can come away debating the film’s craft, its choices, even its tone. What’s harder to debate is the reality it points to. Because somewhere, every twenty minutes, another story begins or ends.”
The film was released theatrically on February 20, 2026.
