Urmila Matondkar Claims She Was Snubbed After Rangeela & Her Acting Was Dismissed As Sex-Appeal

Bollywood actor Urmila Matondkar in a bare-all interview, revealed how she was never given any credit for her movie Rangeela. She added that it was zeroed down to her 'sex appeal. Rangeela, which gained cult status as decades passed, also starred Aamir Khan and Jackie Shroff.

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In Rangeela, Urmila played an aspiring actor. In a recent interview with TOI, Urmila revealed that all critics wrote about her were 'nasty' things even when the movie proved to be a hit at the box office.

Urmila

She said,

TOI

¡°Post Rangeela, people said that everything I did was about sex appeal and nothing to do with acting. How can the song, Hai Rama, happen without a person being a performer? Is doing a tear-jerking scene only acting? Appearing sexy also demands acting. I was not playing Miss Nothing in the film. My character of the girl-next-door transforms through each song of the film, which the critics didn¡¯t understand.¡±

Everything made headlines, from her clothes to her hair, but her performance was never a part of them. She adds,

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¡°Girls who gave 13 flops, girls who were said to look like ¡®boys¡¯ with nothing woman-like about them, girls who did double meaning songs with heroes¡­ were considered actors. But for me, being in front of the camera was a spiritual experience. For me, having Asha Bhosle and Lata Mangeshkar sing was by itself a victory. I didn¡¯t need awards."

Urmila hails from a non-filmy background. Her family wasn't even remotely connected to the film industry.

Agencies

She debuted in the 1991 film Narsimha after appearing as a child artist in movies like Kalyug, Masoom, Dacait, and Bade Ghar ki Beti, among others.

Talking about her struggle in the film industry, Urmila said,

Twitter

"I underwent tremendous struggle in my way. I was still an introvert. I never visited any producer¡¯s office with my pictures. My parents were not connected to the film industry most remotely. I came from a simple middle-class family. There was no chance in hell for me to make it here. But destiny played its role. I happened to get the role in 'Narsimha' because the actress, who was signed for it, suffered a fracture. The climax was to be shot with 500 junior artists and me where I¡¯d to dance and sing. And I had no training in dance! But even before that, I was told off. That I¡¯d never make it because I had nobody in the industry. I didn¡¯t have a famous surname. "

Urmila kickstarted her filmy career as a child actor in Karm and Masoom.

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Later, she starred in Judaai, Satya, Pyaar Tune Kya Kiya, Bhoot, and Ek Hasina Thi films. She was last seen on the big screen in a special song, Bewafa Beauty, in Irrfan Khan and Kirti Kulhari-starrer Blackmail.

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