Rajesh Khanna wasn’t egotistical, I ‘over-rehearsed’ with Amitabh Bachchan: Meenakshi Sheshadri

Veteran actor Meenakshi Seshadri, popular for her roles in iconic films from the 80s and 90s, recently spoke about working with legendary stars like Rajesh Khanna, Shatrughan Sinha, and Amitabh Bachchan. In a recent interaction, Meenakshi shared that despite many opinions that Rajesh Khanna and Shatrughan Sinha were egoistic and hot-headed, she never faced such issues with them. She also revealed one key lesson she learned from her time shooting with Big B.

Speaking to Lehren Retro, Meenakshi shared that though Shatrughan Sinha was infamous for arriving late on set, he once came to the set at 6 in the morning just to comply with her schedule. She said, “Everyone told me that Rajesh Khanna and Shatrughan Sinha are temperamental and egoistic, but I didn’t find that at all. Or they thought of me as a child and were extra nice. During the shooting of Hoshiyar in Chennai, I had to wrap up the shooting and take a flight to Mumbai to shoot another film. My one scene was left with Shatrughan Sinha, and I requested him to come at 6 am. He never arrives on the set that early, but he came that day. After wrapping up the scene, he told me not to tell anyone about this as they wouldn’t believe he came on the set early.”

Talking about her experience of shooting with Amitabh Bachchan, the Hero actor said, “I used to over-rehearse with Amitabh Bachchan, and while he would get better with every rehearsal, I would get worse. I learned a lot from Big B in terms of how to project to the audience.”

During the interaction, Meenakshi fondly remembered Rajesh Khanna and how he complied with her demand for rehearsals before shooting the film. “I did two films with Rajesh Khanna, and I used to demand rehearsals, and he would come for rehearsals for me. We had many difficult scenes in the film,” she said.

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Though Meenakshi had a great experience shooting with Rajesh Khanna, in an earlier interview with Zoom, another veteran actor, Farida Jalal, recalled how Rajesh Khanna rebuked her after she asked for a rehearsal of a song during the filming of Aradhana, but her co-star Sharmila Tagore came to her rescue. “I was shooting for the romantic song Baghon Mein Bahar Hai with Rajesh Khanna, and I was so conscious. I remember I asked for an extra rehearsal, and Rajesh said, ‘How many rehearsals?’ That put me off for the rest of the film.”