Ameesha Patel On How Her Contemporaries Snatched Films From Her: I Was The Educated Outsider

Ameesha Patel made her big Bollywood debut with Hrithik Roshan in 2000 with ‘Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai’. In a recent interview, the actress, who would next be seen in ‘Gadar 2’, talked about her contemporaries Kareena Kapoor, Abhishek Bachchan, Esha Deol and others, who could not handle her success.

In an interview with Bollywood Hungama, Ameesha revealed how she was called a “snob” because she stayed away from bitching about others. She said, “When I entered the film industry, I only had film actors’ kids or producers’ kids enter with me, it was Kareena Kapoor, Abhishek Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan, Tushar Kapoor, Esha Deol, Fardeen Khan, you name it, you turn your head and it was a film family third generation person coming in. I was the outsider and I was anyway this south Bombay (girl) looked upon as a snob because I was the educated outsider. I was the one who did not b*tch on sets, I read books, I did not gossip, so I was anyway called a snob because I chose to read.”

Ameesha then revealed that her colleagues could not handle her success post ‘Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai’ (2000),  ‘Gadar: Ek Prem Katha’ (2001) and Pawan Kalyan’s Telugu film ‘Badri’ (2000).

“Then seeing success after success, seeing Hrithik and me becoming the heartthrob of the nation overnight and then Gadar coming in and then Badri coming in… whether it is Telugu, Tamil or Hindi cinema. God was kind, he knew I didn’t have a godfather so he gave me successful films but my contemporaries could not handle that. There was a lot of jealousy, snatching films from under your nose. There was a lot of cutting you off from films which I did not realise at that time that I have signed my films, blocked my dates but suddenly I am not on that set and a few months later someone else is,” she mentioned.

She also opened up how she was being replaced by another actor often. “A lot of times I was not informed and I have called a lot of ‘A’ list directors and said to them ‘bohot galat kiya aapne (what you did is wrong)’,” she said.

Ameesha’s next, ‘Gadar 2’, with Sunny Deol, will be released in theatres on July 11.