Like most beauty pageant winners in India, Sushmita Sen too got an easy access to Bollywood – early on in her career, right after she brought home the Miss Universe crown.
The iconic beauty queen, was just in her early 20’s, and wasn’t quite familiar with the cinematic world – when she, along with Aishwarya Rai – who won the ‘Miss World’ title the same year, started getting film offers.
But the world of cinema, certainly did require more than just a pretty face, and the earlier years were not easy on the Bong beauty.
In a starring role in the film ‘Dastak’, which was directed by Mahesh Bhatt, the actress faced the wrath of the director on the sets – when she wasn’t able to pull a scene with the level of authenticity the director had wanted.
Sush has opened up about the incident, revealing how she got so upset at Bhatt’s approach to push her limits, that she got upset and almost walked-off the stage, saying ‘No one speaks to me like that’.
In a recent interview with Twinkle Khanna, Sushmita stated:
“He is a fabulous director, I will give him that because he broke an ambition in front of 40 media people and 20 production guys, publicly attacking me. I started crying, ‘I told you I can’t act, why you called me for this, I don’t know how to act.’ He’s like, ‘kya leke aaye ho (what have you brought to me), playing Miss Universe like this on camera. She can’t act to save her life.'”
She further told:
“I got very angry and started walking off the set. He tried to hold my hand and I just snapped it and told him, ‘No, you don’t talk to me like that.’ I was walking away and he grabbed it again and said, ‘That’s anger! Go back and give it.’ And I did.”
Sush stated that it was that emotional push that brought out the best of her at that point in front of the camera.
Well, Sush has certainly come a long way since then.
After finding new-level of fame and success with her advent to OTT through ‘Arya’, which has already featured her in two starring seasons – the actress is busy shooting for the third instalment of the series, presently.
Would be interesting to see what Sush and Mahesh Bhatt manifest now, if they are ever to cross paths, professionally.