Bollywood actress, Urmila Matondkar, claims that she was not given acting credit for her 1995 film ‘Rangeela’ and that her performance was dismissed as 'sex appeal.' In the film, she played an aspiring actor alongside actors Aamir Khan and Jackie Shroff.
Matondkar stated in an interview that even looking sexy requires acting and questioned whether only intense emotional scenes were considered acting. She also discussed how, despite ‘Rangeela's’ success, critics continued to write negative things about her.
In an interview with The Times of India, the actress revealed, “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.”
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Despite ‘Rangeela's’ success, the actress claims that "not a single decent word" was written about her, and that "everything was given credit," including her clothes and hair, 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,” Matondkar added.
Matondkar began her acting career as a child in films like ‘Karm’ and ‘Masoom’. ‘Judaai’, ‘Satya’, ‘Pyaar Tune Kya Kiya’, ‘Bhoot’, and ‘Ek Hasina Thi’ were among her later films. She was last seen on screen in the Irrfan Khan and Kirti Kulhari film ‘Blackmail’, where she performed a special song called ‘Bewafa Beauty’.
