Shilpa Shetty remembers what Shah Rukh Khan told her on the first day of Baazigar shoot: ‘People were far more forgiving then’

Shilpa Shetty is back to enthral her audiences with her upcoming film Nikamma. Directed Sabbir Khan, the film also stars Abhimanyu Dassani and Shirley Setia. The action comedy marks her return to the cinemas after a long gap of 14 years, a period Shilpa calls her “vanvaas”. On Tuesday, as Shilpa launched the trailer of Nikamma in Mumbai, she went down the memory lane and reflected on her three decade long journey in the movie business, which started with Baazigar. Shilpa made her Bollywood debut with the Abbas-Mustan directorial in 1993.

Shilpa called her three decades in showbiz a ‘roller-coaster ride’.  She said, “You feel scared when you are on a high and even more scared when you are going down. It is a roller-coaster, you have to enjoy the ride; highs and lows are a part of life. I live in the moment and that has been my attitude always, it has been positive.”
She then confessed that the time she started acting, she was very raw and didn’t even know how to talk in Hindi. She said, “I feel a lot of gratitude and happiness. You have reminded me that it’s been 30 years for me in the film industry. I don’t know how people have tolerated me. People were far more forgiving then. Today audience is smart, so today you have to work a lot. I feel the reason why I have lasted so long is because I love my work very much.”
Shilpa Shetty and Shah Rukh Khan in a still from Baazigar. (Express Archive Photo)
“I would like to thank and give credit to the press for being with me during my good and bad days. It has been a relationship of great love and I will never ignore it. I am thankful to my audience has always supported me, whether my films came or not or when I was working on TV, they have shown so much love and faith,” she added.

Shilpa also took the opportunity to thank her fans and filmmakers for always supporting her. She said, “I must credit Sony Pictures as they could easily release this film on OTT but they didn’t and it was their confidence to release it in theatres. Today, when I saw the trailer of the film, it doesn’t seem it is not of today’s time, it has content and content is king. That is most important. I have last because of good content be it on films, TV and love of audience.”
Shilpa then also recapped her first day of shoot for Baazigar, 30 years ago, and what Shah Rukh Khan told her. She said, “I didn’t know Hindi then, my grammar is still not that good but I do work hard. I have learnt Urdu. I talk a lot in Hindi. My first shot was in a park with Shah Rukh Khan, before the song ‘Kitabe Bahut Si’. At that time, I would quickly say my lines and finish it off and not face the camera. So Shah Rukh would say ‘look at the camera, the camera is your audience and say the lines’.”