Bipasha’s Anti-smoking Act

Bipasha Basu in Pankh

Bipasha Basu’s anti-smoking act has been recently seen on the sets of Pankh, when she refused to hold cigarette in hand for a song sequence of the film. However director Sudipto Chattopadhyay understood her concern and came up with a creative solution on it.

Bipasha is well known in the industry as to never drink or smoke. She is health conscious and so refused to smoke a cigarette for a scene thinking that it might promote smoking into audience. “The director of the film wanted Bipasha to smoke on screen for a vital sequence. However, Bipasha flatly refused as she does not encourage smoking and hates it. She was not in favour of the scene and if she smokes, it meant that she would be promoting smoking. After that, Sudipto even gave her the option of holding a cigarette, but she refused that as well. Sudipto understood her point of view and agreed to shoot the scene differently,” a source said.

The actress confirmed it and explained her point, “I don’t smoke and I don’t encourage smoking. Unless it’s absolutely essential to smoke for my role, I wouldn’t agree to do it. In Pankh, it was not essential, hence I refused. I had also refused to smoke in one of my earlier films, Corporate. If my role is that of an addict, then I will do whatever the character and the role demands, which was not the case with Pankh.”

The director agreed to Bips point of view and planned something else for the scene. “It was a song sequence with a smoky atmosphere. We wanted to show that when she starts singing, smoke comes out of her mouth. However, she had a very valid point that smoking was a very politically incorrect thing to do. She said that she does not endorse smoking and she did not endorse John doing No Smoking. She had never smoked in her life. We can’t fake smoking like we do with drinking. So, eventually, we placed a canister jar in front of her which emitted smoke and we framed it in such a way that when she sings, it seems that the smoke is coming out of her mouth,” said the director.

Also the producer of the film, Sanjay Gupta said, “It’s the question of an actor being comfortable. Bipasha had some inhibitions about it and it’s perfectly fine.”

May be Bips is inspired from beau John Abraham for fitness and no smoking mantra. John earlier had done a film titled No Smoking, showing rehabilitation of smoking addicts in different way.