Sonali Kulkarni On Facing Color Bias In First Audition

Sonali Kulkarni is 51 now, a respected name in Marathi, Hindi, and Telugu films, which is why it caught attention this week when she went back to a moment from her teens and described it as deeply humiliating. Speaking on the Bollywood Bubble podcast, as her Telugu film The Paradise brings her fresh attention, she recalled what happened at Sonali Kulkarni’s first audition, an experience that shows how early and how casually a young girl can be told she doesn’t belong.

A Teenager, a Punjabi Suit and a Cruel Remark

The audition was held in Pune, where Girish Karnad was casting for his film Cheluvi. Sonali was around 16, in her 12th standard and doing theatre on the side, and she showed up in the only Punjabi suit she owned, a gift from her brother. About 25 other girls were there, and she was excited to meet a filmmaker she admired. Then a well-known older woman in the city asked what she was doing there and, when Sonali answered without catching the sarcasm, told her that dark girls look really bad on camera.

During this week’s conversation, she shared that she wished the ground would just open up and swallow her completely like Sita in the epic. In older interviews, she even confessed that she felt that she shouldn’t have shown up in the first place. But instead of turning around and leaving, she did what most of us do when we feel tiny and out of place: she started helping out, quietly serving tea and water to everyone around her. Then Karnad walked over, asked her name, as he wanted to know what she was working on, and when she mentioned her play to which he simply asked which one. That one small and kind question instantly made her forget all the stress and awkwardness of what had just happened.

Her sense of hurt didn’t come from nowhere. Sonali also mentioned that she grew up feeling insecure about her wheatish skin and small nose because local women often made comments about her skin, and these kinds of remarks people brush off as casual, but that stay with a child for years.

Why This Story Still Matters Today

Sonali’s career answers that remark better than any argument. She made her screen debut with Cheluvi in 1992 and went on to roles in Mission Kashmir, Dil Chahta Hai, Deool and Pune 52, collecting a National Film Award and several Filmfare Marathi and Maharashtra State awards along the way. Today she is getting fresh praise in Telugu cinema for playing Nani’s mother, Samakka, in The Paradise, which proves, if anyone still needs proof, that a camera cares about talent far more than skin tone, something worth remembering for dark-skinned actresses just starting.

What makes her account useful is that she doesn’t present it as a one-off. In an interview, she explained that she did not really face unfair treatment over her skin tone in Bollywood. Instead, most of that bias happened while she was growing up back in her hometown.  This shows that skin tone bias in India almost always begins right in our own neighborhoods and daily social groups, long before a person ever tries out for a role in a movie office. She is not the only actor to talk about discrimination publicly. Priyamani has spoken about being trolled for her dark skin, and Nawazuddin Siddiqui has also shared the unfair treatment he faced because of his complexion, which shows how common colour bias and discrimination still are for many actors.

She has shared this story in different ways over the years, but it always moves people because the pain behind it is something so many of us can relate to. This story is about a girl in her best outfit, a careless remark from an older woman, and a kind moment with a director who spoke to the girl with respect. That mean remark lasted a few seconds but the girl has carried the weight of those words, with the girl for many years. Here at She Inspires Magazine, we hope every young girl waiting for her turn meets Girish Karnad first. Congratulations to Sonali on The Paradise, and thank you for sharing this.