Sushmita Sen recalls how Mahesh Bhatt ‘publicly attacked’ her on debut film, told her she ‘can’t act to save her life’

In a chat with actor-turned-author Twinkle Khanna, Sushmita revealed that Mahesh Bhatt berated her in front of the entire crew, forcing her to walk away in anger. But he implied to her later that it was all a plot to get a performance out of her.

Recalling how she was cast in the film, she said that Bhatt called her and asked her to play ‘Sushmita Sen in a movie’. Sushmita was incredulous, because she had no acting experience (or ambitions) at all, and he told her, “When did I say you’re a fabulous actor? But I’m a fabulous director.”

Sushmita laughed at his confidence, and continued, “I’m doing this mahurat shot, where I pull out my earring and throw it at somebody, and I’m doing it so badly I can’t even begin to tell you. He’s a fabulous director, I’ll give him that, because he broke inhibitions in front of 40 media people, 20 production assistants, publicly attacking me.”

She added, “And I started crying… He was like, ‘Kya leke aaye ho? Playing Miss Universe like this on camera, she can’t act to save her life’. So I got very angry, and started walking off the set. He tried to hold my hand, and I just snapped at him and said, ‘No, you don’t talk to me like that’. I was walking away, and he grabbed my hand again and said, ‘That’s anger, go back and give it (on camera)’.”

Sushmita gave such a spirited performance that she ended up ripping her ear when she was pulling out an earring for the scene. She didn’t make it clear if this was always Bhatt’s plan. Over the years, several male filmmakers have come under fire for cultivating abusive workplace environments in the name of art. Twinkle pointed out it was kind of the norm in the 90s for directors to yell at women on set, and never the male stars.