‘I was so angry and jealous’: Sonali Kulkarni on when Tabu won National Award for Maachis | Bollywood News
4 min readMumbaiJun 26, 2026 08:09 AM IST Back in 1997, Tabu won her maiden National Award for Best Actress for Gulzar’s 1996 period political thriller Maachis. Before that, she was largely known as a mainstream star, having starred in hits like K Raghavendra Rao’s 1991 Telugu action romance Coolie No. 1 and Raj Kanwar’s Jeet (1996). But Maachis emerged as a game-changer for her, also establishing her as a formidable performer. However, Sonali Kulkarni, who was also in the running for the National Award that year for Amol Palekar’s critically acclaimed directorial Daayra (1996), lost out on the honour. She admits now that more than being “hopeful” for the next one, she was “angry and jealous” of the outcome that year. “I was jealous of everyone who were winning awards,” confesses Sonali on the latest edition of Screen Spotlight. “Every year, my films were considered as the best chosen films in the final rounds of the National Awards. And every year after year, I was getting disappointed. And that was the time when I …









