Goan beauty Ileana, who was last seen in the 2012 film Devudu Chesina Manushulu, has made a few striking comments on the southern film industry’s obsession with the female actresses’ navels.
Recollecting an “embarrassing” moment during her debut film, Devadas, Ileana said in a recent interview with a leading English daily, “In my first ever shot, there was a big shell dropped on my belly in slow motion. I even asked the director why we are doing it and he said it would look beautiful. Each time it happened, I was told, ‘you’ve got a very attractive waist, it’ll look pretty and it’s very feminine, but I truly didn’t understand it.”
Ileana further said that the southern film industry has not changed its obsession with navels even today. “You see similar things even today. This is how women are looked at – as a form of beauty, a form of art, and I suppose they get picked in a film in this particular way,” she said. The actress, however, said that she has not faced such situations in Bollywood.