Urmila Matondkar, who started her career as a child actor, is widely known for her brilliant stint in Ram Gopal Varma’s 1995 rom-com Rangeela. The actress played the role of an aspiring actress in the film, which also starred Aamir Khan and Jackie Shroff in the lead roles. Her fans and critics applauded and admired her but Urmila feels she was not given credit as an actor for Rangeela. In a recent interview, the actress revealed that her performance was dismissed as ‘sex appeal’ back then.
While speaking to The Times of India, Urmila asserted that even to look sexy in the movies requires acting. She revealed critics wrote nasty things about her after the success of Rangeela. Urmila was quoted saying, “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.”
Adding to this, the Ek Hasina Thi actress rued that despite the movie’s success, not a single ‘decent word’ was written about her. From her ‘clothes to her hair’, everything was given credit but not her performance.
“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. To have Asha Bhosle and Lata Mangeshkar sing for me was by itself a victory. I didn’t need awards,” Urmila further stated. ALSO READ: Urmila Matondkar Leaves Everyone In Splits As She Mimics A Young Aditya Narayan From Rangeela
On the professional front, she was last seen in the song Bewafa Beauty in Irrfan Khan and Kirti Kulhari’s Blackmail.
Image Source: Instagram/Urmila Matondkar/Fan Clyb page