Sushmita Sen recalls when Mahesh Bhatt insulted her acting skills, reveals her reaction to the filmmaker

Riding high on the success of winning the prestigious Miss Universe pageant in 1994, Sushmita Sen was all set to debut in Bollywood with no prior experience in acting. She bagged a film with Mahesh Bhatt and 1996 release ‘Dastak’ became her debut project.
Recently, the actress opened up about her initial experience on the sets of ‘Dastak’ and how filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt had ‘publicly attacked’ her.Speaking with Twinkle Khanna, Sushmita shared, “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.'” Sushmita added that she was furious after this incident and walked 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," Sushmita added. The actress went on to praise Mahesh Bhatt for his skills as a filmmaker.
Over the years, Sushmita has delivered entertainers like ‘Biwi No 1’, ‘Aankhen’ and ‘Main Hoon Na’ to name a few. In 2020, she ventured into OTT with a thrilling web series titled ‘Aarya’. She returned as the lead for the second season of the show in 2021 and a third part is also in the pipeline.