Aahana Kumra: Prakash Jha's comment was directed at scene, not me

Aahana Kumra and Prakash Jha

Aahana Kumra says she was "uncomfortable" with a remark made by producer Prakash Jha during the shooting of Lipstick Under My Burkha (2017), but the comment was on a scene and not on her. Kumra says Jha made her uncomfortable while filming an intimate scene in the Alankrita Shrivastava-directed film.

It was the first time that the actor, 34, was shooting such a scene. She said the producer passed a remark during the filming of the scene.

Shedding light on it, she says, "Alankrita made sure that all the intimate scenes were shot in a closed set with few people around. Prakash Jha happened to drop by while I was shooting with co-star Vikrant Massey. Since I had never shot an intimate scene before that, it was difficult to get in the right zone. Since he is also a director, he had a suggestion regarding the scene, but I wanted to hear it from Alankrita. He was on the set for a while, and after he left, we continued to shoot and also implemented his suggestion."

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Kumra felt a recent comment made on the incident by her was blown out of proportion. "Prakash Jha has been extremely respectful of all of us actors at every time that we have met him. It's not right to drag his name unnecessarily. The remark was not [directed at] me. It was regarding the scene purely," she said in an interview.

Asked about what the remark was, the actor said, "I am not comfortable sharing that."

Filmmaker Alankrita Shrivastava's Lipstick Under Mu Burkha saw its leading ladies - Aahana Kumra, Ratna Pathak Shah, Konkona Sen Sharma and Plabita Borthakur - unabashedly explore their sexuality. Evidently, then, the film featured a fair share of explicit scenes.

Aahana had confessed to mid-day that after her stint in Lipstick Under My Burkha, the projects being offered to her required her to pull off similar sequences, but her characters lacked meat.

"A lot of people have offered me 'bold characters'. But, I've never understood what that means. When Alankrita came to me with this role [Leela], she didn't entice me with [explicit] scenes. She merely gave me the script, and asked me to decide if I wanted to do the film or not. I was sold on the script. I hate it when people say, 'bada bold character hai'. They are not certain if they want me to strip naked, perform a sex scene, or simply kiss on screen. Films are decided based on scripts, not on a 'bold' scene that the character must perform," she said, adding that such offers have even come from reputable filmmakers.

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