Casting director Abhishek Banerjee says: ‘Employees fired for sending actresses late night messages’

Abhishek Banerjee is currently celebrating the success of Street 2. Apart from his acting career, he has been a dedicated casting director and co-owner of Mumbai-based casting agency Casting Bay for the last 15 years. In an exclusive interview with NDTV, Abhishek spoke about some strict rules imposed on the company's employees to ensure a safe work environment for women. He revealed that he has banned arranging meetings outside the office premises and that no employee of the agency is allowed to text a woman after a “certain time”. Abhishek even admitted to firing employees for violating this second protocol.

Abhishek Banerjee said, “The first thing we did was to make a rule that we don't have meetings and none of our employees are allowed to have meetings outside our office. Because the deep-seated problem was that there was a strong coffeehouse meeting culture in Bombay. 'Let's meet in this cafe, let's meet in this restaurant.' We wanted to say, 'No, that's unprofessional. We don't work in a cafe. You don't meet to have food or coffee. You meet to work. So let's be professional. You come to our office. Whoever wants to meet, we give you time. You come, talk to us and leave.'”

Explaining the strict time frame for messaging women, Abhishek Banerjee added, “None of our employees are allowed to message women actresses after a certain time. If someone does that, strict action is taken and we have taken it. We have fired employees who messaged actresses at a certain time, which was probably offensive. We have created a system where women feel safe,” he said.

In Street 2Abhishek Banerjee plays the role of Jana. Directed by Amar Kaushik, the film stars Shraddha Kapoor and Rajkummar Rao in the lead roles. Pankaj Tripathi and Aparshakti Khurana also play important roles.

Street 2 is the second part of the Street series. The first film was released in 2018. The Stree franchise is part of Dinesh Vijan’s horror comedy universe, which also includes Rohi, Bhediya And Munjya.