MUMBAI: Sonali Bendre made her digital debut two years ago with The Broken News and will be reprising her role as Amina in the second season of the show, a reputable journalist who supports and believes in ethical journalism. The second season of the Zee5 series explores the effects of how the truth is frequently sensationalized to garner attention. The show addresses the tension between moral journalism and sensational news.
Sonali began her acting career in 1994 with Aag and has also frequently fallen victim to tabloid culture and yellow journalism. She revealed she was once frequently associated with her male co-stars in an interview with the popular news portal and how that led to media attention.
She tells us, “Gossips and newsmakers jumping to conclusions – be it about who you’re seeing or the affairs you’re having or even the fights you’re having with your co-stars – come under the gamut of ‘where did that come from?’ And most of the time, such things that were written about me weren’t true at all.”
While she believes that it’s a trend that is prevalent even today, in the nineties, producers used to intentionally sell off such rumours to the newsmakers to increase the buzz surrounding their films. “These days, actors are at least asked if they would want link-up rumours with their co-stars to be floated around. During my time, we weren’t even asked and those gossips would just be out there to promote the film and the actors had no choice.”
The ‘Hum Saath Saath Hain’ actor further adds, “There was a motive to link the lead pair up just to be in news. Itne shiddat ke saath yeh karte the ki I think they (such gimmicks) may have worked. But I found these things to be really strange.” For the unversed, Sonali was linked with Suniel Shetty in the ’90s.
Sonali admits that "perception building is important" in the entertainment industry, but she was instructed to fabricate a story about her affluent upbringing to conform to the stereotype of a movie actor.
“To what extent is one comfortable about building a perception is the question. Today, curating a rags to riches story for an actor is working. At my time, they told me to not give out the fact that I came from a middle-class family,” she reveals.
Even if she didn't like lying about herself, her friends frequently had to give in to these activities. “We were supposed to say that we come from a rich background. But I’ve always maintained since the very beginning that I belong to a middle-class family because I thought it was obvious. I wasn’t comfortable lying but I know that a lot of colleagues did do that. But what happens is that when you give out fake stories, you get caught up in them. And the moment there’s a lie, people go about finding the truth,” Sonali says.
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Credit- News 18
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