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Aishwarya: PDA is not that common in Indian culture
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, who is arguably the most famous Indian actress in the world and has also been doing her best to forge a career for herself in Western cinema, still struggles with one thing -- public displays of affection so commonly seen on the silver screen.
The 39-year-old actress, who had her first screen kiss with Hrithik Roshan in Dhoom 2 in 2006, admits that she is still less than comfortable with the prospect of such intimate scenes.
During an interview, Rai said that the scene caused such a stir in India that she even received legal threats following the movie's release.
'I had doubts about signing the film simply because of the kissing scene'
"I did it once prominently in the movie Dhoom 2 and it was so topical. And you'll be surprised, I mean I actually got a couple of notices, legal notices, from some people in the country turning around and saying "You are iconic, you're an example to our girls, you have led your life in such an exemplary manner, they're not comfortable with you doing this on screen so why did you?" the Daily Mail quoted her as saying.
"And I was like wow, I'm just an actor, doing my job, and here I am being asked to offer an explanation for a couple of seconds in a two, three hour piece of cinema," she said.
However, she also said that she had many doubts about signing up to appear in Dhoom 2 simply because of the kissing scene.
'I was sure even my audience wasn't comfortable to see me kiss onscreen'
"It was around the same time that the interest when there was a lot of interest in me and the possibility of me working overseas.
"I had already declined a couple of scripts purely on the basis of not being comfortable with the very physical scenes and the kissing because I'd never done that on screen and I just wasn't very comfortable with the idea," she said.
"I was quite sure even my audience was not very comfortable with me doing it onscreen.
"I still said okay, if I have to go down this path let me first do it in our cinema, in an Indian piece of cinema, and let me see if all my doubts are true, and they were," she said.
'Kissing is not very comfortable in our screenplay'
Rai added that while onscreen kisses are becoming more common in Bollywood, it will still be a long time before they become the standard.
"A lot of actors have kissed before that movie, they continue to kiss on screen till this very minute, but public display of affection is not that common in Indian culture. Even our actors, it's very rare that actors look comfortable kissing onscreen in our cinema," she said.
"It almost looks like it's a planned moment, just to make much ado about a moment or to excite the audience. It's made into this separate entity from a scene, it's not very comfortable in our screenplay," she added.