Sonali Bendre, a judge on TV dance reality shows, admitted she had no formal dance training when she started in movies. She recalled how choreographer Saroj Khan was frustrated with her during English Babu Desi Mem with Shah Rukh Khan. Sonali also talked about landing the popular song “Humma Humma” in Mani Ratnam’s “Bombay,” which became a ’90s hit. Despite not being trained in dance or theater, Sonali found songs essential for her career success. She revealed to Mid Day that songs played a crucial role in her career, even when some of her films didn’t do well at the box office.
Recalling how dance numbers would give her a nightmare, she said, “It is ironical. I am not a trained dancer. I am not a trained actor. I have never done theatre. So songs, shooting for a song was a nightmare for me. I went through sleepless nights. I would get acidity because of the stress I was going through. I was always scared of songs. Can you imagine my career is based on songs. Even if the movie has not done well, I have done well only because of the songs that I was featured in have done well. They have not all been dance numbers, My first song was ‘Sambhala Hai Maine…’ it was just walking, and it was just expression… It’s the songs that have carried me through.”
Sonali Bendre mentioned how choreographer Saroj Khan was frustrated with her during dance rehearsals for English Babu Desi Mem. She remembered her time on the set of “English Babu Desi Mem” where Saroj Khan, frustrated by her lack of dancing skills despite playing a bar dancer, was tough on her. Sonali Bendre struggled to learn dancing during her free time. Ahmed Khan, Saroj Ji’s assistant at the time, would cheer her up with chocolates and ice cream. She said, “I had done English Babu Desi Mem where Saroj Khan was ready to kill me because I couldn’t dance, and I was playing a bar dancer. Can you imagine what she was going through? I was struggling. Every hour I wasn’t working, I was trying to learn how to dance and Ahmed (Khan) was Saroj ji’s assistant at that time and I remember how he would bribe me with chocolates and ice-cream, he would pick me up from my home in Lokhandwala (Andheri, Mumbai), take me to a rehearsal hall and he would teach me. I was like. ‘I can’t do it, I am fed up,’ and he would say, ‘Come on, just one step, just once more. This is the chocolate, this is the ice cream’. He would literally bribe me, like a little child.”
Sonali was last seen in The Broken News 2.
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