Sonali Bendre, one of the most popular faces of the 90s, recently opened up about the influence of the “underworld” on Bollywood. She said that during the 1990s, the underworld influence made her lose out on films and her husband Goldie Behl, who is also a film producer, helped her during that tough time.
Sonali, who made her Bollywood debut in the 1994 film Aag at the age of 19, had worked on numerous TV commercials before landing her first film. Till date, some of her best work includes Sarfarosh, Diljale, and Major Saab, according to the Hindustan Times. The actor recently also made her OTT debut with The Broken News.
But while promoting her comeback project, Sonali, on The Ranveer Show podcast, revealed that she was denied roles due to pressure from the underworld back in the day. “While many clean sources were financing films back then, Bollywood didn’t have an industry status. And banks would not give loans. So, there was a lot of unregulated finances coming in for films,” she shared.
Sonali recollected struggling to steer clear of ‘dodgy’ film producers and her then-boyfriend, now husband, Goldie, helped her distinguish between the rotten and clean eggs. Still, the actor lost many projects, courtesy of the underworld’s influence on the film industry. “There were times I was supposed to do a role and it went to someone else because some higher power would make a few calls. And then the director or co-actor would call me up and say ‘We’re under pressure to let you go and we can’t do anything about it’ and… I would understand.”
About working on The Broken News, which released on June 10 on Zee5, Bendre told Pinkvilla that she got a bound script “for the first time in my life.” She added, “I can't tell you how exciting that was for me. I actually got all the material beforehand. I really enjoyed the process. I loved the way they are working now. My husband always told me, ‘You'll really enjoy the way we work now. You must get back to it.’”
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