Sonali Bendre on ‘Sarfarosh’: ‘People Wrote It Off As A Documentary’ (EXCLUSIVE)

For a generation that grew up on Hindi cinema in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Sonali Bendre occupies a very specific space in pop culture memory — songs she featured in, the softness she brought to romantic dramas, the effortless screen presence and the rare ability to make glamour feel approachable. But while audiences often remember her through nostalgia, Bendre today is thinking more about reinvention.

In a conversation with Variety India, the actor reflects on how one of her most loved films, “Sarfarosh” with Aamir Khan, was never expected to succeed when it first released “Sarfarosh, when it came out, people wrote it off as a documentary. Nobody expected it to work. When it became successful, everybody was surprised,” Bendre recalls.

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Ironically, one of the things she remembers most from that period is being told her role in the film was merely “comic relief.” “Reviews said I was the comic relief in the film,” she says. “I was told, ‘That was not your film. You were just the comic relief.’ So I never got nominated for it.” The actor now looks back at the film with a very different perspective. “Sarfarosh has such repeat value,” she adds. 

Comedy, meanwhile, is the genre Bendre says she is still waiting to fully explore.“Comedy is something I would love to do,” she shares, while acknowledging that it is one of the hardest genres to write well. She fondly remembers shooting “ Love Ke Liye Kuch Bhi Karega” with Saif Ali Khan, revealing that many of their scenes were improvised on set. “Saif and I had such a blast doing it,” she says.

Sonali also admits she misses lighter storytelling in today’s entertainment landscape. “Everything we shoot today is so dark all the time. I want to see something nice and light and hopeful and fun,” she says. That need for optimism, she explains, became even more important after her cancer diagnosis and recovery journey. “Especially after my illness, hope is a very big thing for me. Anything that shows hope is something I would love to do.”