{"id":329871,"date":"2026-03-09T13:21:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T13:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/329871\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T13:21:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T13:21:14","slug":"saif-ali-khan-feels-gender-has-nothing-to-do-with-pay-gap-in-bollywood-its-a-balanced-economic-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/329871\/","title":{"rendered":"Saif Ali Khan feels gender has nothing to do with pay gap in Bollywood: \u2018It’s a balanced economic system\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pay disparity has been a long-standing talking point in the Indian film industry, with actors and filmmakers frequently debating the gap between the earnings of male and female stars. Now, Saif Ali Khan<\/a> has weighed in on the issue, mentioning that he believes that stars who can pull crowds to theatres deserve to be paid more for their box-office draw.<\/p>\n

\"SaifSaif Ali Khan is the son of veteran actor Sharmila Tagore.Saif on pay parity<\/p>\n

Recently, Saif appeared alongside his sister Soha Ali Khan<\/a> on a podcast episode on her YouTube channel, with Kunal Kemmu<\/a> also joining the conversation. Talking about the debate around pay disparity in the film industry, Saif and Kunal mentioned that the pay cheque is largely driven by box office economics and audience demand rather than gender.<\/p>\n

During the interaction, Saif mentioned that actors who hold a similar stature deserve to be paid equally. However, he acknowledged that the industry\u2019s pay structure is largely influenced by a star\u2019s ability to pull audiences to theatres.<\/p>\n

Saif said, \u201cIf the actors are of equal stature, they should be paid the same amount. But I also feel the economics work in a certain way. If you are putting people in seats in the theatre, you get paid accordingly. Everyone understands that relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n

He further explained that the system is not designed to favour one gender, but instead is a reflection of an actor\u2019s market value and box-office pull.<\/p>\n

Saif added, \u201cIt\u2019s not like just because you are a certain gender you deserve to be paid more or less. It\u2019s actually a very balanced economic system where people are clear that this person is a superstar because they are filling theatres. They know their worth, charge that price and get paid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here, Kunal elaborated on the \u201cmaths\u201d behind how actors\u2019 remunerations are determined in the industry, noting that distributors estimated a film\u2019s recovery prospects based on the star power attached to a project.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a maths to it. This is the mathematical part, not whether a film will work or not \u2014 that\u2019s a different thing. Earlier, distributors knew that if I have this actor, I can sell a territory for a certain amount of money and that becomes part of the recovery,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Saif\u2019s upcoming project<\/p>\n

Saif is the son of veteran actor Sharmila Tagore. He is married to actor Kareena Kapoor. Saif will next be seen in Netflix\u2019s period drama Hum Hindustani, which chronicles the behind-the-scenes story of India\u2019s first democratic election. The film also stars Pratik Gandhi and is directed by Rahul Dholakia. The release date is yet to be announced. Saif also has Priyadarshan<\/a>\u2019s Haiwaan in the pipeline, co-starring Akshay Kumar. The film has wrapped filming, with its release date awaited. Last year, Saif was seen in Netflix’s film Jewel Thief: The Heist Begins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pay disparity has been a long-standing talking point in the Indian film industry, with actors and filmmakers frequently…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329872,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[162786,162785,458,146,21459,85,46,162784,13414,162787],"class_list":{"0":"post-329871","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-audience-demand","9":"tag-box-office-economics","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-film-industry","13":"tag-il","14":"tag-israel","15":"tag-pay-disparity","16":"tag-saif-ali-khan","17":"tag-saif-ali-khan-soha-ali-khan"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}