When Bollywood Went Nude

Baring their soul before the camera is a prerequisite for every actor. But going naked in front of it may not be everyone's cup of tea. Still, there are some who agree to bare it all or almost for the sake of the story or sensationalism.

One recently caught a fleeting glimpse of Varun Dhawan's bare butt in his OTT debut, Citadel: Honey Bunny, which had the amused actor respond.

That's the tricky bit about going au naturel on screen, it's all everyone wants to talk about for better or worse.

Sukanya Verma looks at some bold instances of Bollywood's beautiful appearing in the buff.

Ranbir Kapoor, Saawariya

Few remember the movie as well as the moment Ranbir dropped his towel in a tantalising moment of his acting debut, Saawariya showing off his talent and tooshie with equal gusto. It would be the first of his many disrobed avatars.

 

Ranbir Kapoor, Besharam, Animal, Sanju

Shots of Ranbir's butt crack under the shower in Besharam, fully monty in Sanju and slow motion streaking of a man losing his mind in Animal reiterate the extent of an actor comfortable in his own skin.

 

Aamir Khan, PK

Ever the perfectionist, Aamir performed the alien arriving on earth sans any clothes in his birthday suit. Initially though, he tried to do the sequence, which required him to chase a man, wearing a pair of modesty camouflaging shorts but decided to go for the final cut without anything on to make it appear truly convincing.

 

Rajkummar Rao, Love Sex Aur Dhoka, Shahid, Omerta

Working on scenes of intense sex and torture required Rajkummar to shed his inhibitions to an extreme degree. And the only reason he was able to overcome his nervousness is his faith in the film-makers at helm (Dibakar Banerjee, Hansal Mehta) known for their artistic aesthetic.

 

Ranveer Singh, Befikre

Whether he's shaking his bare butt to assert his playful character in Befikre or stripping for a magazine cover, Ranveer's madcap persona is ever willing to embrace its wildest impulses much to the moral police's chagrin.

 

John Abraham, New York

Playing a victim of racial profiling as an Asian immigrant in post-9/11 America, John's character goes through a whole lot of torture and trauma behind bars.

Kabir Khan's unrelenting documentation of it as well as John's no-holds barred participation adds to the impact of his living nightmare.

 

Rajshri Deshpande, Sacred Games

Rajshri grabbed quite a few eyeballs with her topless fervour as part of Sacred Games' torrid lovemaking sequences.

'When I did the scenes, I wasn't aiming at a particular impact. It was what the character Subhadra and the situation demanded. Since I had faith in my director Anurag Kashyap, I didn't hesitate even for a minute in saying 'yes', she shared with Rediff.com.

 

Neil Nitin Mukesh, Jail

Although the private bits got blurred out in the final edit, Neil had no qualms about performing frontal nudity in Madhur Bhandarkar's Jail, which revolves around a wrongly convicted man's experience doing time in prison.

 

Kareena Kapoor Khan, Kurbaan

There's much hue and cry whenever a mainstream leading lady engages in skin show. Expectedly political parties and the moral police didn't take too well to the focus on Kareena's 'topless' allusions or intimate scenes with Saif Ali Khan in Kurbaan. One protestor even draped a sari around her poster.

 

Simi Garewal, Siddhartha

Back in 1972 when demure was the desi way, Simi's bare torso and Khajuraho-inspired sex scenes with Shashi Kapoor in Conrad Rooks' adaptation of Hermann Hesse's novel attracted both eyeballs and controversy for its content.

Indian censors didn't take kindly to its provocative imagery, which continues to be the most talked about aspect of this Indo-American collaboration.

 

Rishi Kapoor, Bobby

Years before Ranbir Kapoor doffed his hat, rather, dropped his towel as a nod to his dad's adult debut Bobby, Rishi Kapoor showed off his fearless presence and posterior in front of the camera with nothing except a towel on his shoulder for the Raj Kapoor directed romance.

 

Zeenat Aman, Satyam Shivam Sundaram

Raj Kapoor's weakness for erotic visuals, wherein his voluptuous, scantily clad leading lady would often find herself under a waterfall in transparent saree, became the talking point of his purported social dramas.

Be it Zeenat Aman's partially disfigured village belle in Satyam Shivam Sundaram, which, ironically talks about inner beauty prevailing over the physical.

 

Mandakini, Ram Teri Ganga Maili

Or Mandakini's shower in the mountains draped in a blouse free, barely there chiffon sari leaving little to imagination. Her lack of talent ensured she would never live down that image.

 

Padmini Kolhapure, Geharayee

A teenage Padmini Kolhapure stars as a possessed schoolgirl undergoing an exorcism ritual, which requires her to be butt naked for a sequence of the Aruna-Vikas directed 1980 horror.

Considering she was a minor at time of filming renders it both controversial and creepy.