3 min readNew DelhiJun 30, 2026 01:30 PM IST
In the 1970s, Zeenat Aman was known as the ‘bold’ actor who took up ‘scandalous’ roles. She was known as the ‘sex symbol’ of the era, and even though she performed different kinds of roles during that era, this image stuck with her. In a new interview, Zeenat opened up about all the tags that were attached to her name and shared that when people met her in real life, they were always shocked by how she was unlike her on-screen persona. She also shared that even though she wanted to contribute to the creative process, filmmakers were only interested in what she had to offer in terms of her looks,
‘The sex symbol tag stayed with me’
She shared with Shubra Aiyappa’s YouTube channel, “I always found that there was such disparity between what was projected about me, and the person that I truly was. The sex symbol tag stayed with me for a very long time. When people would meet me, they would realise that I was truly nothing like the characters I portrayed.”
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Zeenat shared that in this era, there were hardly any women on set, so most of the time, it would just be her and her hairdresser in an all-male set. Despite her being the lead actress, she wasn’t included in the creation of her characters, or how they should be portrayed. She shared that the filmmakers would only be concerned with how she would come across visually. “Nobody was interested in me being cerebral. They were only interested in gayegi, nachegi, do dialogue bolegi, bheegegi, barish mein(singing, dancing, saying two dialogues, getting wet in the rain).”
‘They wanted more cleavage’
Zeenat recalled that when she came to India after living in the US for many years, she had an idea about global fashion as she was quite aware of the trends in Hollywood. But when it came to her styling and costumes in Indian films, it was a collaborative effort with her dress designers, like Bhanu Athaiya. When asked if her opinions were taken into account or rejected for being “too bold,” Zeenat laughed and said, “On the contrary, I feel that my contributions were always modest and the additions that people wanted were not so modest. It has happened to me on several films where they wanted more cleavage, more of the back showing, that came from the production.”
While the subject of pay parity is still widely discussed, things were not much different during Zeenat’s time and she shared that the primary reason behind that was the patriarchal nature of society. “Honestly, I think the financial powers lie mostly with men. Men are in charge of the finances and it is still a very patriarchal society and any commercial cinema, caters to that,” she said and added that while there have been some changes in the last few years, but these changes have been quite slow.
Zeenat Aman is best known for films like Hare Rama Hare Krishna, Don, Satyam Shivam Sundaram, among others.
Zeenat Aman opened up about the early days of her career. (Photo: Zeenat Aman/Instagram)