Happy birthday Manisha Koirala: When Vidhu Vinod Chopra called her a ‘terrible actress’ but she proved him wrong, bagged his film

On Manisha Koirala’s 50th birthday, here is a throwback that shows how she turned criticism to praise with her determination and hard work.

Manisha Koirala, who has proved her acting prowess with films such as Bombay, Khamoshi: The Musical, Dil Se and Company, was once dismissed as a ‘terrible actress’ by Vidhu Vinod Chopra after an audition. As she turns 50 on Sunday, here is a blast from the past about how she proved him wrong and ended up bagging the film.

Manisha Koirala had written in her memoir that her first audition for 1942: A Love Story was disastrous.

PTI reports that Manisha wrote about the incident in her memoir, Healed: How Cancer Gave Me a New Life. The film in question was 1942: A Love Story. “I remember my screen test for 1942: A Love Story. Veteran filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra had called me to do a scene. But to my disappointment, at the end of it he remarked: ‘Manisha, you were sh*t. You’re a terrible actress,’” she wrote in her book.

The ‘warrior woman’ inside Manisha was challenged and she urged Vidhu to give her a day’s time and a chance to audition again. She said that she went home and continuously practised her lines so intently that her mother got ‘distressed’ and advised her to not ‘kill (herself) over’ a rejection. However, the actor was determined to turn things around in her favour.

The next day, Manisha gave it her all at the audition, leaving Vidhu speechless. He then told her, “If this is the heart and soul that you promise to put into each scene of my movie, I will sign you up instead of Madhuri Dixit. Manisha, yesterday, you were at zero. You are at a hundred today.”

Manisha took a sabbatical from films after being diagnosed with cancer in 2012. She made her comeback in Bollywood in 2017 with Dear Maya, in which she played a reclusive woman who transforms after receiving love letters from an anonymous admirer. She will be seen next in the musical romance 99 Songs, which marks music composer AR Rahman’s foray into production.

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