Raveena Tandon is one of the most beautiful actresses in Bollywood. She ruled the industry during the 90s. Raveena Tandon started her career 30 years ago in the movie Patthar Ke Phool in 1991 opposite Salman Khan. She received the Filmfare Award for the New Face of The Year. Since then, Raveena Tandon never looked back. She gave many brilliant performances in her career.
In 1994, she appeared in eight Bollywood films, and most of them were commercial successes. Mohra opposite Akshay Kumar and Dilwale opposite Ajay Devgn were top-grossing movies of the year. It started with her not wanting to become an actor, and it has been 30 years since she made her debut. Talking about it, Raveena Tandon laughs and says,
“It makes me feel like some ancient veteran. When you say it aloud to yourself that it’s been 30 years you have been doing this, it doesn’t feel like that. Every new film or show or scene I do, I still have butterflies in my stomach. I am still learning, there is so much new technology, one is always a learner till the end. That’s the way it is.”
Raveena Tandon is the daughter of producer-director Ravi Tandon. She did justice with all kinds of roles: romantic, comedy, drama, or social message-driven content. One might think she is the producer-director daughter; hence she got everything by default, but the reality is she was far from it. She added,
“I am in this industry by default, I never wanted to be an actress. I was a little plump, reserved kid who bit her nails, was always conscious of people looking at her. Even in the class, I was that, so I sat on the backbench. Fortunately for me, even in school, I got lead roles, annual functions, the play we performed. It always worked for me strangely, I used to do it though I would be nervous.”
Raveena Tandon’s aim was to become a director. However, destiny has planned something different for her. She added,
“I think the metamorphism happened then. I joined Prahlad Kakkar (ad guru), he always told me I need to be on screen, I used to say no. I started getting offers, but I refused, keen to finish my education first. I got seven-eight offers before Patthar Ke Phool, like Jungle and Heer Ranjha. It’s not that they weren’t great films to be associated with, but I hadn’t made up my mind. It was destiny that the makers spotted me in my first year of college. It wasn’t that my dad (Ravi Tandon) influenced someone to take me into films, or pushed me. There’s this nepotism debate today, which I think is ridiculous, things happened on their own for me. If I didn’t have the face for it, I wouldn’t have been discovered or got offers.”
The makers of Patthar Ke Phool approached her father to let her act. It was her college friends who helped her to become an actor.
“The makers asked my father and said ‘ghar ki bacchi hai, don’t worry, everything will be taken care of’. The next day I went to college and told my friends ‘guess what? I am doing a film with Salman Khan’ All of them begged me ‘say yes, just do it for us. We will come on set, take pictures, after that if you don’t want to act in films, don’t’! I did that exactly, and the rest is history.”
After 30 years, Raveena Tandon is all set to make her digital debut. She said reinventing herself has kept her relevant after all this while. Raveena concluded,
“I feel there is a lot more in me yet to be tapped. In terms of my filmography,I was the only heroine who had a Dulhe Raja (1998) releasing at the same time as a Shool (1999), Aks at the same time as Daman (both 2001). Ghulam e Mustafa (1997), Bade Miyan Chote Miyan (1998) alongside. I think I managed to do some varied stuff and got accepted. I have no clue how I stayed relevant. I actually started experimenting pretty early. I started getting bored myself of what I was doing, and needed something that challenged myself as an actor. You need to grow, evolve, and that is what I always tried.”
Raveena Tandon also adopted two girls at the age of just 21. She is one of the most kind-hearted actresses in Bollywood. Raveena will be next seen in the upcoming movie KGF Chapter 2. Wishing you all good luck Raveena for future projects.
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