Neena Gupta Opens up About Her First Kissing Scene in Indian Television History

28 June 2023, 02:07 PM IST Neena Gupta | Photo: ANI

VeNeena Gupta is an actress who has been in the news for her romantic relationship with Stindies cricketer Vivian Richard. Neena was also the first actress in the history of Indian television to act in a kissing scene. That scene was with Dileep Dhawan in the 1993 serial Dillagi.

Neena reveals that she couldn’t sleep the night the scene was shot and washed her mouth with Dettol. Neena’s revelations were in an interview given to Instant Bollywood as part of the promotion of the Netflix series Lust Stories 2.

‘As an actress we have to act in all kinds of scenes. Sometimes you have to land on the ground. Otherwise you will have to stand in the sun for hours. Years ago I did a serial with Dilip Dhawan. The serial also featured the first ever lip to lip kiss scene in the history of Indian television. But I was not at all comfortable while shooting that scene. Dileep was not my friend. He was just an acquaintance. He was beautiful to look at. But that wasn’t really the problem in this case. It’s that I wasn’t physically and mentally ready for it. Although I was tense, I prepared myself to act in that scene. Being an actress, she decided to do all this and acted in that scene. After the scene was over, I washed my mouth with Dettol. It was very difficult to kiss someone I didn’t know.’ Neena Gupta says.

Neena adds that the channel’s move to promote the episode by including that kiss scene backfired on her. ‘At that time there were only one or two TV channels. When such scenes come, the family stops watching TV together. As the opposition intensified, they had to remove the scene itself.’ Nina says.