Pooja Batra forced to do splits in front of camera to make insecure heroes look taller: ‘I lost films due to my height’ | Bollywood News
Sangeeta Bijlani, Pooja Batra, Sushmita Sen, Deepika Padukone — what’s common between the three of them? Yes, they’re all former models who became leading Hindi film actors. Another commonality is the height — they were all extremely tall women in an industry where most of their male co-stars were short, but with a rather tall ego that their leading ladies had to look shorter than them. “It was tough. I remember I was told by Sangeeta Bijlani, ‘You don’t have a chance in the movies because you’re too tall,’” recalled Pooja Batra. Sangeeta, who made her Bollywood debut with Qatil (1988) opposite Aditya Pancholi, worked only for eight years as a leading lady, her last film being Nirbhay (1996) opposite Mithun Chakraborty. Pooja admitted she was disappointed by Sangeeta’s word of caution. “She’s my idol She’s beautiful, and she’s a model too,” she told Harper’s Bazaar India. “I gave every role I got my best even though the heroes got intimidated because of my stature. It’s true I didn’t book a lot of movies because …
