Vidya Balan's hilariously wholesome anecdote about Sanjay Dutt and her first-ever intimate scene in Parineeta

Hindustan Times

24-07-2025

Trust Vidya Balan to light up the room with her hearty laugh. Vidya Balan and Sanjay Dutt in stills from Parineeta (2005)(Photos: X)
The actor recently appeared on an episode of The Hollywood Reporter's THR Talks, hosted by Anupama Chopra. Part and parcel of the conversation involved her bouncing back to a comically bad experience she shared with an actor — who remained unnamed — whom she was supposed to shoot an intimate scene with. "I've had an actor who had Chinese and (winces) didn't brush and then I had an intimate scene with him and I was like...please! Do you not have a partner?", she exclaimed.
Now given the context of the conversation, it was only fair she revisit the first-ever intimate scene she shot, which was incidentally for her Bollywood debut film Parineeta (2005). The scene involved her and Sanjay Dutt with her playing Lalita and Sanjay playing Girish.
She shared, "He (Sanjay) came to me in the morning and he's saying 'Vidya, I am really nervous, I don't know how we're going to do this'. And I'm looking at him thinking, this is Sanjay Dutt (laughs). That itself is quite (laughs again)", quipping, "And then, he's so seasoned, he's telling me this...seasoned in every way (laughs), I couldn't resist that".
But Vidya at the time was quick to understand how Sanjay went out of his way to make sure she wasn't feeling the pressure. "But you know, it was his generosity, what he did, was made sure that I felt like he too was nervous, and that took the load off me, because, you know, it was my first intimate scene and I was like, I didn't know my way. You know, you almost feel like you're going to expose a part of you when you're doing something like this".
Not just this, Sanjay even came back after having shot the scene to personally check on her. "But that put me at ease and I'll never forget, at the end of the day, he came, knocked on my door and he said, 'are you okay?'. I said, 'yeah, absolutely'. He kissed me on my forehead and left. And that's why Sanjay Dutt is Sanjay Dutt". Looping back to her anecdote about the anonymous actor she added, "And he also smells lovely".
Parineeta can be revisited on OTT.