cp-webdeskNeena Gupta, set to star in Netflix’s Lust Stories 2, shared her tense moments before and after filming her first on-screen kiss on the 1990s show Dillagi. She was so shaken that she rinsed her mouth with an antiseptic after the experience.
She said that showing physical intimacy on screen was unheard of those days, and the move on the channel’s part to promote the episode by saying it included the first-ever on-camera kiss in the history of Indian TV backfired on them. She told Inside Bollywood, “As an actor you have to do all kinds of scenes, sometimes you have to step in mud, sometimes you have to stand in the sun for several hours.”
She continued in Hindi, recalling the kissing incident, “Many years ago, I worked on a series with Dilip Dhawan. The lip-to-lip kissing scene was a first for Indian television. I had trouble sleeping all night. We weren’t exactly friends; he was just someone I knew. Although he was attractive, it doesn’t really matter in these circumstances because I wasn’t prepared mentally or physically. Despite my anxiety, I forced myself to follow through.
Neena reminded herself that she is an actor and that she must overcome her fears. “It’s as if some people can’t do comedy or cry on camera.” I had it drilled into my head, and I did it. I rinsed my mouth with Dettol as soon as it was over. It was extremely difficult for me to kiss someone I didn’t know.”
The channel thought it had hit gold when it used the clip to promote the episode. But, as Neena revealed, it backfired on them. There weren’t many TV channels at the time, she explained, so families would end up watching TV together, and many people were shocked by the kissing scene. As a result, Neena stated, “they had to remove it.” She concluded, “I did a love scene in Utsav, it was very difficult.”
