"As an actress, Reema was phenomenal and as a human-being, she was extraordinary," recalls actor-director
Mahesh Manjrekar, who worked with the veteran actress on '
Vaastav
', 'Jis Desh Mein Ganga Rehta Hai' and '
Nidaan
', among others films.
Reema, who breathed her last at the Kokilaben Ambani Hospital in Mumbai on Thursday, was a stellar performer for Mahesh. He recalls the days during the mid 1980s when he had just set foot in the industry and was looking for roles. "Rajan Tamhane told me that Reema was directing a play and looking for actors. He asked me if I would want to do it and I agreed without hesitance. For me, an actor who was a nobody then, to get to do a project with
Reema Lagoo was nothing short of a fanboy moment," says Manjrekar.
It was soon after that Mahesh approached Reema with the script of Aai, his first directorial which unfortunately didn't see the light of the day. "The only choice I had for the role was Reema. Luckily for me, she agreed to do the film. But the producer suffered some financial loss around the same time and the project got stalled. Later, when we planned to start again, Reema got busy with Hindi films so that project never happened,” says Mahesh, who more than made up for the lost opportunity with fantastic roles for her in 'Vaastav' and 'Nidaan'. In Vaastav, Reema plays the role of Sanjay Dutt’s mother. After her son becomes a don and goes out of hand, the mother takes the final decision of killing him. “Nidaan was another of her great performances. I also consider it one of my better works too. Coincidentally, the projects that I can call milestones in my career have had Reema in them,” shares the director.
Mahesh also wanted Reema to play Kaveri, the wife to Nana Patekar’s character in '
Natsamrat
'. However that didn’t come through. In an earlier interiview with us, he had said, “For some reasons, she didn’t want to do the role. I tried but she was firm.” Ultimately, Mahesh’s wife Medha Manjrekar did the role. But there were no hard feelings between Mahesh and Reema. “She was not just a phenomenal actress; she was family. It saddens me to say ‘was’ because till yesterday she was here and happy. Today, she’s gone,” says Mahesh.
Concluding his thoughts about Reema, Mahesh opines, “She had a lot of potential but got stereotyped because those were the only roles available then. This was a time that she could’ve unleashed her full potential by experimenting with different roles. Sadly, that won’t happen.”