Jyotika On Facing Sexism For Being Married To ‘Superstar’ Suriya: ‘You May Have Identity Crisis’ | Exclusive
Jyotika says she faces casual sexism every now and then, especially during interviews when Suriya speaks about her and she of him.
After 26 years, Jyotika returned to Hindi films with Srikanth in 2024. And now, she’s gearing up for the release of her next Hindi project, Dabba Cartel, a series that chronicles the story of five ordinary women, who accidentally become involved in a high-stakes drug cartel. The film sees Jyotika playing a housewife of a business tycoon, who has put her own high-profile career on hold to focus on her family. Incidentally, in real life, she too took a hiatus from the movies after her marriage to south star Suriya in 2006.
Dabba Cartel, apart from narrating a gripping investigative tale, also touches upon the theme of casual sexism. Now, in an exclusive chat with News18 Showsha, Jyotika reveals that despite spending so many decades in the film industry, she often faces discrimination for being a woman and a large part of the same stems from being Suriya’s wife. “It seems like an everyday thing. I’m married to a superstar. So, I face it every now and then, till date. I see it happening even during interviews," she tells us.
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Explaining her stance further, she says, “If I say that I feel lucky to have married Suriya, people say that he’s a really nice guy. If he says that he feels lucky to have married a nice woman, it suddenly becomes something like Suriya is such a nice guy that he’s thinking of his wife. You experience casual sexism even when it comes to materialistic things. I may buy a car but someone else is supposed to press the button and check the features out. It’s now a part of daily life. There are hundreds of instances that I can point out."
And this discrimination just doesn’t end here. According to Jyotika, it often makes her question her own identity. “Sometimes, it reaches a level where you may have an identity crisis. A woman’s search for her identity also nudges one to take a lot of decisions and make choices on their own. That’s also how I chose my career path," she states. For the unversed, Jyotika and Suriya had first met on the sets of the 1999 Tamil film, Poovellam Kettuppar. After dating for a few years, they finally got married that led her to shift base from Mumbai to Chennai.
A while ago, Suriya had revealed that post the pandemic, they shifted back to Mumbai as a family to help revive Jyotika’s career and give a regular lifestyle to their children. Earlier, in an interview with us, Jyotika spoke about her strong relationship with Suriya and said, “My husband is my best friend. He was the first guy I met in the industry and I did my first film with him. We remained friends for a long time. Since we’ve lasted this long and continue to, I’m imagining that it’s because of the friendship we share."
Coming back to Dabba Cartel, the series also stars Shabana Azmi, Nimisha Sajayan, Sai Tamhankar, Shalini Pandey and Anjali Anand. It’s slated for a release on Netflix on February 28.
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