Just before the release of Humshakals, a newspaper carried an article about a director calling an actress to his room on pretext of work, while shooting abroad. When she came into the room, he was wearing a towel which he dropped. The actress whipped out her phone and took pictures. She threatened to go to the media and expose him. Apparently, she got a huge settlement for keeping silent and deleting those pictures. No names were taken. But everyone in the industry was whispering that the actress and director in question were Bipasha Basu and Sajid Khan.
Says a source close to the actress, “Bipasha is not that kind of girl whom anyone would try to intimidate and take advantage of. And she would never be hushed up if such a thing happened.”
Speaking for the first time on these muted stories in the press, Bipasha sets the record straight. Says the spunky actress, “A lot of unsavoury stories are going around about what happened during the shooting. I’ve been reading ‘blind’ stories about some terrible situations that happened during Humshakals. Let me set the record straight. No such thing happened. These are completely false stories. I am not the kind of girl anyone can mess around with. I am fiery and forthright and I don’t take bullshit from anyone.”
There were stories of some ugly incident happening on the sets. “I read about this. I don’t know with whom in Humshakals this happened. It didn’t happen to me. Nobody would dare to behave badly with me. I know how to protect myself.”
When asked about her rapport with the director, Bips says, “The rapport was zero. I shut myself down. I did what I was instructed to do on the sets. That’s it.”
Reacting to Saif Ali Khan disowning the film she says, “But that was after the film released. What was the point? Yes, Humshakals was a bad experience for me. But not for the reasons some media reports are whispering about. No one ever takes advantage of me. I don’t allow it. It’s not in my nature to take bad behaviour quietly or to hush it up. If something ugly were to happen I’d shout about it from rooftops.”
Bipasha does admit, though that Humshakals was the biggest mistake of her career. “I’ve said this before. I am saying it again. I had no clue what I was doing in the film. I was doing a film without a script and role. Even though I knew such comedies are driven by the male characters, I still took it on hoping there would be some substance to my role.”
The actress was paired with Riteish Deshmukh and she says she didn’t mind that. “I didn’t care about not being paired with Saif Ali Khan. I didn’t need to prove myself the main heroine by being paired with him. I wanted to bring a solid quirkiness to my part but that didn’t happen. I was miserable just standing around in every frame trying to figure out what I am supposed to do.”
She blames her business manager for the fiasco that was the film. “I always follow my own instincts about the roles I should do. This time I listened to my business manager. I never listen to managers. She told me it would do my career a lot of good. It was a big lesson for me. I should always listen to only my heart. I’d rather be part of films like Creature and Alone where I’ve a definite and concrete part to play.”
Bipasha says she had decided not to participate in the marketing. “I didn’t know what to say. Out of respect for the producer Vashu Bhagnani I stayed quiet.”