After Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2, Smriti Irani On Becoming TV's Highest-Paid Actor: "I Beat The Boys And The Girls"
Smriti Irani herself confirmed being the highest-paid television actor. In an interview with CNN-News18, she was asked about her journey from being a struggling actress to becoming television's top earner.
To this, the 49-year-old smiled and said, 'Yes, I see the glee on your face."
She added, 'You also set that benchmark as a professional to say that if you deliver on history on numbers and revenue, why not? Because not everybody who's watching us knows we get to negotiate our contracts as employees. We are all a part of a larger organisation and flow of work. For one person to stand up and say 'Listen, not only pay parity, I beat the boys and the girls and how much I make that is a lot of hard work.'"
Smriti Irani claimed that she has the ability to elevate the careers of her co-stars.
'The idea is, are you truly the star or do you have the professional capacity to make stars around you? I think that I have actually, mercifully, had the capacity of making stars out of others who are with me. If there is a Tulsi, then Amar Upadhyay quintessentially creates his own market. So do you become that pivot, that sounding board, that other actors can then enhance their economic value? That I have managed to do through the project, so my co-stars today can say, 'Oh, we are a part of that.'," she said.
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi first aired in 2000. The show ran for eight long years and released more than 1500 episodes. It centered on Tulsi Virani, a devoted daughter-in-law of the influential Virani family, as she battled through the complexities of family dynamics, tradition, and moral dilemmas.
The reboot features both Smriti and Amar Upadhyay in the lead, along with Hiten Tejwani, Gauri Pradhan, Rohit Suchanti, Shagun Sharma, Aman Gandhi, Tanisha Mehta, Ankit Bhatia and Prachi Singh in key roles. The show premieres on StarPlus and is available to stream online on JioHotstar
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