A veteran player Zeenat Aman was one of the most successful actors of the 1970s, who received labels such as ‘sex symbol’ and ‘brave’ for playing colorful and unconventional characters on screen. Although these roles have defined her public profile over the years, Zeenat says she never showed who she was. In a recent interview, she talked about the disconnect between her on-screen persona and her real persona, and also recalled how filmmakers were more interested in her appearance than in her production.Zeenat said in an interview with Shubra Ayyappa on his YouTube channel, “I always found that there was such a difference between what was said about me, and the person I really was. The sex symbol stayed with me for a very long time. When people met me, they realized that I am not the same as the people I portrayed.” Reflecting on the film industry at that time, Zeenat said that most films were male-dominated. Apart from the barber, she was often the only woman there. Although he was the director of the theater, he said that he had no say in the creation of his character or their character, as the attention was focused only on his character. “No one was interested in me being brainy. They only liked gayegi, nachegi, doing dialogue bolegi, bheegegi, barish mein (singing, dancing, saying two dialogues, getting wet in the rain),” he said. Zeenat also spoke about her dress code and how her exposure to international fashion influenced her appearance after returning to India from the US. He said that making clothes is often a collaboration with famous designers such as Bhanu Athaiya. However, he revealed that if anything, his ideas are often more restricted than what the filmmakers want. When asked if her feelings were rejected for being too bold, Zeenat laughed and said, “On the contrary, I feel that my contributions were always limited and the extras that people wanted were not modest. It has happened to me in several films where they wanted more cleavage, more of the back to show, which came from the production.” The expert also spoke about the inequality of wages in the film industry, saying that the reasons behind this inequality are rooted in the patriarchal system. According to him, men traditionally control the financial decisions in commercial films, which has contributed to the gender pay gap. “Honestly, I think that economic power belongs to men. Men are the ones in charge of money and they are still the most natural group and every commercial cinema, it helps,” he said, adding that although the industry has made great progress over the years, the changes have been slow.