Actress Moushumi Chatterjee, who turned 77 on April 26, recently opened up about confronting sexism in the film industry, recalling how she slapped actors who misbehaved with her.

“They deserved it — they were sexist — but I don’t blame them entirely. You have to see both sides of the coin. The heroes used to flirt with the heroines and expected them to reciprocate,” Chatterjee said in an interview with a daily.

The Aa Ab Laut Chalen actress recalled how she stood up for herself in a male-dominated industry. “I would never compromise with my dignity, no matter what,” she said, as she revealed that her refusal to “pander to egos” cost her roles, including the lead part in Gulzar’s Koshish (1972).

“Gulzar and I made up and did Angoor many years later. Coincidentally, Haribhai (Sanjeev Kumar) was my hero in Koshish as well as in Angoor. I lost a lot of roles because I wouldn’t pander to anyone’s ego,” said Chatterjee, in the interview to The Indian Express.

Chatterjee recently returned to Bengali cinema after a nine-year gap with Aarii, directed by Jiit Chakraborty. Also starring Yash Daasguptaa and Nusrat Jahan, Aarii released in theatres on April 25.

In the same interview, Chatterjee also shared her experience of working with Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan in Manzil (1979) and Piku (2015). “Basu Chatterjee’s Manzil with Amitabh was fun. Many years later, I did Piku with him — I enjoyed that too,” she said.

Chatterjee’s last Bengali film was Sesh Sangbad (2016), written and directed by Pallav Gupta. The film stars Srabanti in the lead role.