Although Daya Vaidya may play a strong and sassy cop on the new CBS drama "Unforgettable," she says that even in 2011, "the casting couch" is still very much alive in Hollywood -- and you won't believe what one agent told her would happen to her career if she had a baby.
"When I was first starting out, there were a lot of innuendoes that if you do this, then this will happen. I won't name names, I will get in trouble," Daya tells me. "It wasn't like, 'Hey, take your pants off!' Strip baby!' but it is like 'go out with me. I am doing a show, come out with me.'"
Daya made it clear that she never accepted the director's offer but did tell me, "this is a major, major director I have since forgiven."
But she hasn't been able to forgive the people who told her that if she had a baby, her career would be over.
"It was really hard. I decided to take a year off after I had my baby. And when I came back, people were like, 'Um, yeah, you are done,'" Daya tells me. "I remember an agent looked at me and said, 'We've lost momentum,' and I said, 'You mean me having a baby lost momentum?' And he said, 'No, I don't mean that' ... Code words: momentum, lost steam, you're not quite where we want you to be ... I think it's a perception thing, they see you as a mom now. I think unless you are an A-list actress, they see you differently."
For my entire interview with Daya check out "Naughty But Nice With Rob" on HDNet.