Ek artiste ko koi bandish nahi honi chahiye. One shouldn’t confine oneself to doing a particular kind of role. One should be open to everything that breaks the monotony, thinks yesteryear actor Waheeda Rehman, who was in the capital recently as part of the seventh edition of the Habitat Film Festival — “Retrospective on Waheeda Rehman”.

Rehman, who has portrayed diverse characters in her film career, says that an actor should never restrict her or himself. “When I chose my movies I never thought of it being either a hit or flop, or even about what people would think about me. I did movies because of the roles,” she says.
At a time when most female actors were portraying submissive roles, Rehman chose characters that were a little unconventional. At times, she was even criticised for that. In a candid chat with writer Mukul Kesavan, she spoke about many things that she came across as an actor about half decade ago and also the changes that she is witnessing now.
She made the above statement talking about her character Rosie in the popular movie Guide with Dev Anand. Recalling old times, she said that many of her contemporaries tried to stop her from taking up that role. “Someone said that I should not take up the role of a married woman who leaves her husband. It would be a negative portrayal of me and my acting career would stop there,” she says.
But then she believed in her abilities as an actor and went ahead with the role. “After the movie released, some of those who had warned me against taking up the film, sent me a telegram appreciating my performance,” she recalls.
Rehman’s journey from a 12-year-old Bharatnatyam student in the south to an actor in Mumbai wasn’t very difficult. She says, somehow things kept happening on their own after a folk dance performance in a bi-lingual (Tamil and Telegu) movie.
The initial days of Rehman in Mumbai were mostly ruled by Guru Dutt, as he was the one who called her to the city and offered her a role in C.I.D. “I had signed a contract to work only with him. But after my second film Pyasaa for which I was really appreciated as an actor, I started getting many offers. It was then that Guru Dutt gave me the liberty to work with other production houses. He said that it was not nice on his part to restrict me when I was getting good offers,” says Rehman, talking about Guru Dutt.
Rehman says that she was lucky that most people were supportive. “Despite the fact that I was a trained dancer I never really got a chance to show my prowess in the films. When I got a chance to do that in Guide, I was elated. After the movie was complete, I got to know that it was really long and needed to be chopped. I requested Dev to not chop the dance numbers, if need be my scenes could be cut,” says Rehman.
Her recent stints in movies have not been less eventful. When she made a comeback after a considerable gap with films such as Om Jai Jag-dish and Rang De Basanti, she was surprised to witness the changes. “While earlier, most of the times the dialogues were written on the sets, these days everything is done in advance. Special workshops are conducted for the actors. That makes everything better,” she says.
While she is happy with the way the Hindi film industry has evolved over the years, Rehman says she has certain reservations when it comes to using swear words. “I loved small-budget films like Vicky Donor, Kahani, Paan Singh Tomar. There are other new age films that I have loved as well. While I appreciate everything, somehow I just can’t relate to the use of abusive language,” she says.