Couldn’t Sleep All Night: Neena Gupta Recalls First On-Screen Kiss

Several times actor Neena Gupta opened up about her journey in Bollywood and her career. This time Gupta brushed on her first on-screen kiss. Gupta has been promoting her upcoming Netflix anthology film Lust Stories 2, while giving an interview she revealed her first experience of getting intimate on screen. 

In an interview with Indian Express, the actor recalled her first kiss and pointed out that she remembers feeling anxious both during and after recording her first on-screen kiss. Gupta admitted that the act left her feeling so scared that she rinsed her mouth with Dettol after the kiss. This occurred in the early 1990s while she was doing a television programme Dillagi.

According to Gupta, it was rare in those days to display physical affection on TV. The channel attempted to capitalise on it by claiming it to be the first on-camera kiss in Indian TV history, which eventually backfired. Earlier TV had limited channels, families would often watch serials together, and many viewers were horrified by the kissing scene. She admitted that as an actor one has to do all kinds of scenes, sometimes one has to step in mud and stand in the sun for several hours.

Neena Gupta On First Kissing Scene 

Recalling the kissing encounter, she said that she worked on a series with Dilip Dhawan many years before and the lip-to-lip kissing moment was a first for Indian television. She added that she had trouble sleeping all night. Dhawan was not her friend, just someone she knew. Despite being not prepared psychologically or physically, she forced herself to do it. She claimed anxieties hit her hard but she neglected them. 

Gupta consciously reminded herself that she is an actor and that she must go past this. She repeated it over and over until she did it. When it was over she immediately cleaned her mouth with Dettol. 

Neena Gupta will be seen in the sequel of Netflix's popular anthology film titled Lust Stories 2 . This time, filmmakers Sujoy Ghosh, Amit Ravindernath Sharma, R Balki, and Konkona Sen Sharma directed the four short films.

Suggested Reading: Neena Gupta Reveals Her Mom Never Spoke About Sex, Prompts Sex-Ed