Bollywood has always relied heavily on its villains to create fear, conflict and drama. From the larger-than-life antagonists of the 1970s and 1980s to the more complex negative characters seen today, some performances became memorable for all the wrong reasons.
Several veteran actors were repeatedly cast as menacing characters, and their on-screen personas became so convincing that audiences began associating the actors with the villains they portrayed. Here are five such controversial and disturbing examples.
1. Amrish Puri’s controversial scene in Koyla
Amrish Puri remains one of Hindi cinema’s most recognisable villains, but not every controversial scene from his career involved physical violence. In the 1997 Shah Rukh Khan-Madhuri Dixit starrer Koyla, Puri played Raja Saab, a powerful and cruel character.
Actress Deepshikha Nagpal, who played Bindya Rani, later spoke about a bold scene involving her character and Puri. She recalled how the sequence led audiences to judge her and assume that she had gone much further than she actually did. Deepshikha said the public reaction reflected the different standards applied to actresses for bold scenes.
2. Ranjeet and the infamous Sharmeelee scene
Few actors became as closely associated with the portrayal of sexual predators as Ranjeet. Born Gopal Bedi, he entered Bollywood hoping to become a hero but was typecast as a villain after Sharmeelee (1971).
The film, starring Shashi Kapoor and Rakhee, featured Ranjeet in a rape sequence that became one of the defining moments of his early career. Reports have often cited the scene as the reason he became synonymous with such roles.
Interestingly, Ranjeet has spoken about how his screen image became so frightening that women would sometimes hesitate to even approach him socially.
3. Gulshan Grover’s ‘Bad Man’ era
Gulshan Grover’s career is another example of how strongly Bollywood once relied on the villain archetype. His nickname, “Bad Man”, became synonymous with his screen persona.
Grover has himself spoken about filming a rape scene with Sridevi and the difficulties involved in portraying such a disturbing sequence. His villainous roles during the 1980s and 1990s frequently placed female characters in threatening situations.
4. Shakti Kapoor’s disturbing villain roles
Before becoming one of Bollywood’s most recognisable comic actors, Shakti Kapoor established himself through negative roles. He has previously spoken about performing a rape scene with Anita Raj and recalled the strong reaction it received from his own family. In an interview with Rediff, Kapoor said his father was upset after watching the scene, while his mother reportedly walked out of the theatre.
His transition from threatening villains to comedy characters later became one of the more interesting career transformations in Hindi cinema.
5. Amjad Khan’s many ruthless screen avatars
Amjad Khan’s portrayal of Gabbar Singh in Sholay remains one of Indian cinema’s most iconic villain performances. But his career went far beyond the 1975 classic.
He frequently played violent antagonists in the 1970s and 1980s. A retrospective examination of Bollywood’s treatment of sexual violence has documented numerous films in which Khan’s characters were involved in such storylines.
Bollywood’s changing portrayal of villains
The treatment of women and sexual violence in older Hindi cinema has increasingly been examined through a critical lens. Scenes that were once presented simply as dramatic devices are now viewed differently, particularly because of the way some films portrayed assault, victimhood and male violence.
What made actors such as Ranjeet, Gulshan Grover, Shakti Kapoor, Amjad Khan and Amrish Puri so effective was their ability to make audiences hate their characters. But separating the actor from the character remains important: these were performances of fictional villains, not reflections of the actors’ real personalities.
