Shabana Azmi Reveals Shashi Kapoor Called Her 'Stupid' For Not Doing Intimate Scenes With Him: 'He Was Crazy'

Shabana Azmi is one of the most prolific actresses in Bollywood. During her career, the veteran actress has worked with several industry stalwarts, including Shashi Kapoor, whom she has been a fan of since she was nine years old. However, her experience with the actor left her in tears for another reason. In a recent chat, Shabana recalled how Shashi scolded her after she started crying because she didn’t want to shoot any intimate scenes.

Speaking to Zoom, Shabana said, “That was his way of showing affection. He was crazy. I will give you an example, we were shooting for Fakira and the song was Dil Mein Tujhe Bithakar. Now, I went on set before he arrived and Satyanarayan ji was doing the choreography and I saw that the moves were very intimate and I was very young at that time and I had tears in my eyes and I left the set and my heart was thudding because I really didn’t want to do those shots.”

Shabana continued, “So I went in and I told my hairdresser that I couldn’t do those shots and I started crying. Suddenly there was a heavy knocking on the door, comes Shashi Kapoor, he was like, ‘What’s wrong with you’, so I said, ‘I can’t do those scenes’, he said, ‘Why, when you became an actress and you said Mummy, mummy mai bhi actress banungi tab tumko khayal nahi aaya ki iss tarike ke cheezein tumko karna hai (didn’t you realise this when you told your family I want to become an actress), stupid girl’, and he left.”

She added, “I looked at my hairdresser and I said, ‘How mean is he, look at the way he’s speaking to me.’ And then after half an hour, I went on the set and he had every move changed. This was the kind of person he was.”

“I have been a fan of Shashi Kapoor since I think I was 9. When I was in school, he would come with his family every Sunday to Prithviraj Kapoor’s house and Prithviraj Kapoor was my immediate neighbour. So, I used to save on my pocket money and buy a black-and-white photo of Shashi Kapoor and every Sunday I would go and I would get it signed. He’s the only person whose autograph I took on his photograph. For me, when I was suddenly cast opposite him in Hira Aur Patthar, it was completely unbelievable and the thing about Shashi was that he schooled me,” she said.