For audiences who grew up watching Sonali Bendre light up the song-driven era of Hindi cinema, it may come as a surprise that dance numbers once filled the actor with fear. From chart-topping artists like Humma Humma to Aankhon Mein Base Ho Tum, Bendre became one of the most memorable faces of the 90s and early 2000s music scene.
However, behind the magic, she says the songs were the most intimidating aspect of filmmaking for her.“The nightmare situation in the movies was the song. I can’t tell you what a nightmare that was. I’m not a trained dancer,” Bender admitted. While she enjoyed the musical score that blended naturally with the story, the pressure of the choreography would leave her extremely anxious. “Most of my songs are more like stories than part of the narrative.
And I liked the songs as long as they were part of the narrative because that didn’t cause me as much anxiety as “You’ve Got to Dance.”
“It still gives me nightmares. I can’t sleep all night because of the anxiety because I don’t know how…”
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Despite these concerns, Bendar continued to appear in some of the most popular Bollywood songs of the period. However, she insists that none of it was easy at all. “Believe me, it was not easy at all.
“It was scary.”She recalled that a major turning point came while working on the English film Babu Desi Mem, starring Shah Rukh Khan and directed by Praveen Nischul. Before signing on for the film, Bender was candid about her lack of dance training.“When I shot Babu Desi Mem in English, I knew I didn’t know how to dance. So, when I heard the story and script, I said to Praveen Nischul, ‘Okay, I really want to do it, but I don’t know how to dance, so what are we going to do?’What followed left a lasting impact on the actor. Legendary choreographer Saroj Khan was reportedly unimpressed during their first interaction.
“It was my first time, and Saroj ji said, ‘Heroine ko toh naachna bi nahi aata’ (The heroine doesn’t even know how to dance), and she came out of the Satyam hall saying, ‘Who is this? “I can’t teach this.”Bandar admitted that the accident shook her self-confidence during the first days of her career. “But that was the ambition. When she said that, it was like, ‘What the hell?'” You start wrestling with imposter syndrome.Then that was the choreographer and director
Ahmed Khan
who was helping Saroj Khan at the time, stepped in to help her. “Ahmed Khan would pick me up before I went to the sets early in the morning. We would rehearse together. He would bribe me with chocolate and get the work done for me. Then I would go to the sets, and that’s how I started learning what I was supposed to shoot for in English Babu Desi Mem.”Over the years, Bender says fear gradually turned into motivation. Instead of striving for perfection, she focused on improving with each performance. “It became about getting better with every movie, every rehearsal, every song that once terrified me.”
