Guneet Monga Remembers Dying Her Hair White So Customers Could Trust Her With ‘A Lot Of Money’

Around the age of 20, producer Guneet Monga Kapoor used to dye her hair white and wear saris to meetings to appear older so that potential clients would trust her with “a lot of money”.

With two Oscar nods, most recently for Karthick Gonsalves’ heartwarming documentary short The Elephant Whisperers, he now hopes his career will inspire more young makers to enter the Indian film industry.

When asked if there is any prejudice about being a female producer in India, Guneet said it has more to do with age than gender. “I don’t think it is about women, but it is also more challenging as a producer. Age has also passed. “Being young rather than being a woman has held me against me,” she told PTI in an interview here.

Guneet said, “Being a young producer has thrown up a lot of questions that I had to contend with in my 20s… I am working now and (I hope) my journey and my role here will help more young makers.” will motivate them to join the business.

The Delhi-born producer moved to Mumbai in 2006 to pursue her dream of making films. He worked as a line producer for “Kaho Salaam India”, “Rang Rasiya” and “Dasvidaniya” before launching his production banner Sikhya Entertainment in 2008.

Recalling the time when she joined Anurag Kashyap’s two-part film Gangs of Wasseypur (2012) as a producer, Guneet said that people were unsure about her credibility because of her age. “I used to dye my hair white, I used to wear sarees, used to pray to wear glasses, which I have now…. But being young, how you are on the inside, how you look because at the end of the day, you just need to get your job done,” she shared.

“You’re handling a lot of money, so that’s definitely the kind of lens I faced that was ‘she’s young, how will she handle that? I was 26 when I made ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’, so, of course there were questions like that,” said Guneet.

The producer said these things were never spoken out loud, but “the feeling in the room” could be sensed. So, maybe you should look at it a different way, said the producer, who won his first Oscar in 2019 for the documentary short “Period.” end of sentence”.

According to Guneet, it is a good time to turn producer. “Today there is a need for more makers to get into the core of the content, where the content goes, how it is perceived, what the marketing is, etc. We work in longer formats, so from time to end, the central role is that of a producer,” she explained.

Meanwhile, the producer’s upcoming projects include an action film, a series titled Eleven Eleven and a Netflix documentary on rapper Yo Yo Honey Singh.

(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – PTI,