Last Updated:October 17, 2025, 15:36 IST

Amitabh Bachchan revealed that Smita Patil was uncomfortable shooting Namak Halaal and felt awkward that fans mostly remembered her for this minor commercial role.

Smita Patil and Amitabh Bachchan have worked together in multiple films.

There are a few actors who are known for their artistic cinema, and then there are others who are known for their commercial masala entertainers. While in today’s world there is flexibility for an actor to do both kinds of work, back in the 1970s the story was different. Actors had to choose their path, and when an artist like Smita Patil tried to have it all, they were suppressed by external forces.

Back then, female actors were given roles that can be described as “flower pot” roles, where they were either the love interest of the leads or dancing around trees. Smita wasn’t someone to be comfortable doing this, but she was aware that she needed a wider fan base for her artistic work to be seen, and for that, doing commercial dramas was a must.

Smita’s sister, Manya Patil-Seth, in a chat with Filmfare, quoted Smita as saying, “I want to draw audiences to the smaller socially relevant films. The commercial actor’s reach is wider.” She also remembered that Smita didn’t try to network or curry favor for big roles, which caused her to miss out on some important parts.

“Many a time, she was made to believe she’d be working with a certain filmmaker. But when it didn’t happen, it would disturb her. She’d say, ‘I can’t sweet-talk to people.’ It’s no secret that, as a result, she lost many roles,” she said.

One of the most talked-about and biggest projects that Smita lost was Yash Chopra’s Silsila, where she was supposed to play the part later played by Jaya Bachchan. But to her luck, Smita did a couple of commercial dramas with Amitabh Bachchan, who was ruling the industry at that time.

In 1982, she acted in Namak Halaal, directed by Prakash Mehra, in a minor role as Amitabh’s love interest. The film expected her to perform a rain dance, which went against her professional principles and upset her.

Later, Big B himself talked about how Smita felt in one of his blogs and shared, “Smita was uncomfortable during the shooting of the entire film because she just could not understand why she was asked to do what she was asked to do in the film.”

It was later, during the book launch of Smita Patil: A Brief Incandescence in 2015, when Big B opened up about the dance number “Aaj Rapat Jaye” and shared, “She told me she had worked in so many good films but once, when she was at the airport, she felt awkward and embarrassed that people remembered her for Namak Halaal.”

Later, when she starred in Ramesh Sippy’s Shakti, Smita had a proper argument over a dialogue which read, “Main tumhare bachche ki maa banne wali hoon.” She furiously told the filmmaker that she couldn’t say, “this idiotic ghisi-peeti (cliched) line!” While usually filmmakers tend to intimidate actors, Smita wasn’t one to get scared.

Smita died in 1986 at the age of 31.