'Farhan Akhtar earned Rs 45 lakh per episode for saying jokes written by me, I got only Rs 45 thousand,' says Varun Grover as he realised the pay disparity between actors and writers
Varun Grover
is a wellknown screenwriter, lyricist known for projects like 'All India Rank', 'Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar', 'Masaan' and more. He's also known for being a stand-up comedian and during the start of his career, he also worked for television shows.
He had worked as a scriptwriter on 'Oye! It's Friday!' which was hosted by
Farhan Akhtar
. That's when he realised the pay disparity between an actor and writer.
He said during an interview with The Lallantop, "After Ranvir Vinay Aur Kaun, I joined Farhan saab's Oye! It's Friday! It was during my time there that I realised that there was not much value addition happening from the side of the performer to the material I was writing for them.
That was also the first time I got to know how much actors make doing such shows. Even though I had an idea prior to that as well, I did not assume the gap to be so big.
But once I learnt about it – maybe it's false information and somebody told me this only to provoke me; I can't say for sure – I realised the gap was huge. He was being paid Rs 45 lakh for each episode, while I was earning just Rs 45,000."
He added further that he got paid so less despite the fact that the show was mounted on a huge budget, the set was so extravagant.
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The props on the set costed the amount which he was getting paid. He said, "It was my material, and he was just delivering the lines. (Although he's getting paid 100 times more) There wasn't 100 times the value added. The show was shot in Yash Raj Studio. It was a really good, expensive set. Had I stolen one of those twinkling balls hanging there each day, my daily Rs 45,000 would've been sorted.
That was the first time I saw such a dazzling set. By then, I had also lost interest in writing stand-up for television, particularly since censorship had also started.'
In the same interview, Varun also clarified about his comment, 'NO' which he dropped on
Anurag Kashyap
's post praising
Sandeep Reddy Vanga
after 'Animal'.
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