When Manisha was called "terrible actor"

After watching her enact a scene during the screen test for 1942: A Love Story, director Vidhu Vinod Chopra dismissed Manisha Koirala as a "terrible actor" but in no mood to give up, she requested him for a second chance the next day and the rest is history.A gritty Manisha came the next day and after her performance, Chopra remained silent for long, as if in a daze.

And then he said the words that were music to Manisha's ears: "If this is the heart and soul that you promise to put into each scene of my movie, I will sign you up instead of Madhuri Dixit. Manisha, yesterday, you were at zero. You are at a hundred today."

Manisha recalls this episode in her memoir 'Healed: How Cancer Gave Me a New Life'.

"I remember my screen test for 1942: A Love Story. Veteran filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra had called me to do a scene. But to my disappointment, at the end of it he remarked: 'Manisha, you were shit. You're a terrible actor.'

Born into the prominent Koirala family in Nepal, Manisha made her Bollywood debut with Saudagar in 1991 and went on to act in films like 1942: A Love Story, Akele Hum Akele Tum, Bombay, among others.