Amrita Rao shares her journey in Bollywood, on ‘Masti’ completing its 17 glorious years

Amrita Rao in an exclusive interview with ‘Etimes’, shared her experience and journey in bollywood.

Masti is a Indian adult comedy film. Masti’ is undoubtedly one of the most successful films we have in the genre. Masti is directed by Indra Kumar, and starring Riteish Deshmukh, Aftab Shivdasani and Vivek Oberoi in the lead roles with Lara Dutta, Amrita Rao, Tara Sharma and Genelia D’Souza as female leads and Ajay Devgn in a supporting role. The film was released in 2004, and received positive response from critics, and also managed to do well at the box office, turning out to be a moderate success at the box office. Masti was also amongst the low number of Bollywood adult comedy movies at the time of its release.

As the film clocks 17 years today, ‘Etimes’ got in touch with Amrita Rao, who was one of the leading ladies of the film.

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In an exclusive interview with ‘ETimes’, Amrita shared her memories and experience of being a part of the film, the fun she had with her co-stars, and more.

When asked about, how does she look back at the film Masti today, after it has completed its 17 years, the actress said, “Wow, some films are so picture perfect that you don’t want to change even a single frame and ‘Masti’ is definitely one such magical film. It’s funny and its relevance is simply timeless. There were many sequels thereafter but none of them was even close to ‘Masti’.”

The actress also talked about her initial reaction when she was first offered the movie. The actress revealed, “Director Inder Kumar ji and Ashok Thakeria ji, the producer had seen me in ‘Ishq Vishk’ and approached me for this one. I was 16-years-old back then. My earliest memory is of the narration given by Milap Zaveri, which was super hilarious. I was very happy to jump into the shoes of this hyper-possessive wife Anchal aka ‘Satellite’ who is always keeping a track of her husband’s whereabouts.”

Talking about the kind of reactions she recieved back from the audience, the actress further added, “I remember after ‘Masti’ released, wherever I went girls and guys used to see me and go, “Jaanu you love me no?” referring to my signature dialogue from the film. I used to look at them and laugh back. It was a sign of genuine popularity. The film also became my first silver jubilee film!”

The actress also revealed about who was the prankster on the sets of ‘Masti’. Amrita said, “Reteish Deshmukh was very shy and quiet back then; the pranksters clearly were Vivek Oberai and Aftab Shivdasani. I recall on my first day of workshop, which was even before we all went on set. I was shooting for ‘Main Hoon Na’ and had reached the workshop a bit late because I was at another rehearsal. As soon as I entered the reading room, Vivek started clapping and the entire cast followed; they clapped loudly on my entry just as to embarrass me of having entered late!”

She also shared an anecdote,”I was shooting for ‘Masti’ and ‘Main Hoon Na’ in the same year and I recall there was a week when I had to do a double shift and I shot day and night for 72 hours without a break, hopping from one set to another.

I also recall that one of the days there was a massive date overlap and both Farah Khan and Indu ji required me to be on their sets at the same time. That day was such a tough call and then Mr Shah Rukh Khan kindly called and requested Inder Kumar ji to adjust the shoot date for me, and Induji was sweet enough to allow me.”

When asked about her comeback, Amrita said, “Well, I couldn’t take up Mr Boney Kapoor’s offer of debuting on the OTT platform only because I was in my seventh month of pregnancy and in the last few months I couldn’t take up many offers while being a hands-on mom to an infant. However, now that my baby will be six months old in May, I am relieved and ready to start working anytime now.”

Amrita made her screen debut in Ab Ke Baras (2002), for which she was also nominated for the Filmfare Best Female Debut Award in 2003 and she was widely recognized from her role in the romance film Vivah (2006).