‘What Deepika Padukone did in Gehraaiyaan, I did 15 years ago’: Mallika Sherawat

Mallika Sherawat has said that a section of the industry always talked about her body and glamour, never her acting, She also compared her 2004 film, Murder with Deepika Padukone’s recent outing, Gehraaiyaan. (Also read: Mallika recalls her fight with Emraan: ‘It was so childish, I’m no less’)

Deepika featured in Shakun Batra’s Gehraiyaan alongside Siddhanth Chaturvedi, Ananya Panday and Naseeruddin Shah. The film explored the grey areas of modern relationships.

Asked about the changes that the new age brought in the film industry, Mallika told Prabhat Khabar, “Earlier, the heroines were either too good, sati-savitri types who were too innocent to know anything, or they were the characterless vamps. These were the only two types of roles written for heroines. The change that we see now, shows women as humans. She can be happy or sad. She can make mistakes, she can falter, and you love them despite all of that.”

She added, “The heroines are more confident about their bodies as well. Such hue and cry was created when I did Murder. People said all kinds of things about the kiss and the bikini. What Deepika Padukone did in Gehraaiyaan, I did that 15 years ago, but people were too narrow-minded back then. I should tell you that a section of the industry and media was mentally torturing me. These people only talked about my body and glamour, not my acting. I worked in Dashavataram, Pyaar Ke Side Effects and Welcome but none talked about my acting.”

Directed by Anurag Basu, Murder starred Mallika opposite Emraan Hashmi and was widely talked about for the steamy scenes that Emraan and Mallika shared in the film.

Mallika is now gearing up for the release of her next, RK/RKay. Written and directed by Rajat Kapoor, the film also stars Kubbra Sait, Ranvir Shorey, Manu Rishi Chadha, Chandrachoor Rai, Abhijeet Deshpande, Abhishek Sharrma, Grace Girdhar, and Vaishali Malhara in key roles.

The film has already been screened at several international festivals including Shanghai international film festival, River to River festival in Florence, Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival, Austin Film Festival and Pune International Film Festival. It is now set for a theatrical release on July 22.