Actress Taapsee Pannu believes films which are women-led or unconventional are on the verge of becoming “extinct” due to lack of support from the audiences.

Pannu, who will be next seen in courtroom thriller Assi, says it has become increasingly difficult to bring unconventional stories to the big screen.

“We are on the verge of becoming an extinct species, we mean films like ‘Assi’. There is a certain template that our so-called commercial cinema abides by and we don’t conventionally fall in that template of sorts,” Pannu told news agency PTI in an interview.

“The reality is people think that these kinds of films will keep coming on OTT and we will keep watching it. But no, OTT’s don't want these kinds of films either. They have clear mandates, that only the films that are working in theatres are the films that they want to pick,” she said.

“They want to take that theatre audience to their platform. They are like, ‘We already have this kind of audience, we want those massy pot boilers audiences of our country to subscribe to the platform’, That’s why I say we are on the verge of becoming extinct unless people realise that we need to watch it. Sometimes it's good to watch reality as well.” Pannu added.

Talking about Assi, Pannu shared, “Victories are way less than the battles that actors like me go through. One is the battle to get a film through. With this film, because he (Sinha) was there, I had to not think of a lot of things.”

Directed by Anubhav Sinha and written by Gaurav Solanki, Assi is a courtroom drama that features Pannu in the role of a lawyer fighting to secure justice for a rape survivor.

Assi also stars Kani Kusruti, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, Revathy, Manoj Pahwa, Kumud Mishra, Naseeruddin Shah, Supriya Pathak and Seema Pahwa in key roles.

Produced by T-Series, Assi is scheduled to release in theatres on February 20.