Sushmita Sen is an Indian actress, model, and beauty pageant titleholder who was crowned Miss Universe in 1994. Sushmita made history by becoming the first Indian woman to win the Miss Universe pageant at the age of 18. After her pageant success, Sushmita ventured into the Indian film industry and made her acting debut in the Bollywood film “Dastak” in 1996. She gained fame for her performances in movies like “Biwi No. 1,” “Main Hoon Na,” and “Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya?” among others.
But before making her acting debut in Mahesh Bhatt’s 1996 film Dastak, she had never performed in theatre since winning the Miss Universe competition in 1994. Despite her protests that she doesn’t know how to act, Mahesh Bhatt offered her the role of a beauty queen in the movie. She has now recounted how Mahesh insulted her acting skills in front of multiple people, “breaking her ambition.”
Sharing the same incident with Twinkle Khanna, Sushmita was asked about the incident in which Mahesh Bhatt insulted her. She said that Mahesh is a fantastic director, and she will give him that because he broke an ambition in front of 40 media people and 20 production guys by publicly attacking her. She started crying, She told him that she had informed him that she couldn’t act. Then why have you called me for this? She doesn’t know how to act. He’s like, “Kya leke aaye ho, playing Miss Universe like this on camera. She is helpless to act to save herself.
Sushmita Sen got very angry and started walking off the set. Mahesh Bhatt tried to hold her hand, and she just snapped it and warned him, “No, you don’t talk to me like that.” She was just walking away, and he grabbed it again and said, “That’s anger. Go back and give it. And then she gave it a perfect shot. She complimented Mahesh on his directing skills as well, but she and Twinkle both remembered directors in the 1990s becoming upset with female actresses.
In her acting career, Sushmita has made significant progress and come a long way. She later made appearances in films like Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya, Biwi No. 1, Fiza, Aankhen, Main Hoon Na, and Biwi No. After 2010, she left the film industry, but she came back strongly in 2020 with the web series Aarya, in which she portrays a working mother as her character depicts her.
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