I’m not saying who was better actresses, in fact she wasn’t as bad actress as people make her out to be, I’m saying interms of female stardom, she was far ahead of all the actresses, Rani came close though. It’s debatable if Devas would of become hit without, she was the leading lady and hit with Sanjay leela bhansali in HDDCS ensured she offered her his next film.
I don’t know which time period you are talking about but Rani was always ahead of Ash. After Kajol, she was the best actress during 2000’s that can act. I heard Salman recommended Ash to SLB’s next movie. SLB give importance to beauty more than acting. So whoever play Paru have to be really attractive and beautiful but Madhuri stole the movie. There was a poll on IF that I made few months ago about who acted better in Devdas and 90% people voted for Madhuri.
https://www.indiaforums.com/forum/bollywood/5069016/who-acted-better-in-devdas
Most people watched Devdas for Madhuri and SRK and of course for the famous story that was written by famous Bengali writer. I think Ash never focused on her acting. Most beautiful woman in the world went to her head and she became so obsessed with it. She is still sucking that to stay in the limelight. When people praise you so much for your look, then you would forget about other things and think so high for yourself. I saw that kind of situations to many people.
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