Miss Universe 1994 Sushmita Sen, who made her film debut with Mahesh Bhatt’s 1996 film Dastak, recounted her experience working on the movie with Mahesh Bhatt and claimed in an interview that the director reportedly verbally attacked her in front of many people.
Talking to actress Twinkle Khanna during the interview, she was quoted as saying by media sources, “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.’ (sic).”
Sushmita added that the incident left her flustered and that she walked out of the film set. She also said that the director reportedly came after her and tried to hold her hand which she snatched away in anger. “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, (sic)” she said during the interview.
The actress then went on to praise Mahesh Bhatt for his skills as a filmmaker. Mahesh Bhatt is famous for making films like Sadak, Murder, Zakhm, and Gangster. The last film he directed was the 2020 film Sadak 2 starring Alia Bhatt and Aditya Roy Kapoor.
Sushmita went on to become a popular and successful actress in the Hindi film industry. She has starred in films like Biwi No. 1 and Main Hoon Na. She was last seen in the second season of her Disney+Hotstar series, Aarya in 2021.