Rampur Ke Laxman (Bhojpuri Film) Shooting Report

Barbara wants to work with SRK

After romancing Bollywood heartthrob Hrithik Roshan onscreen, Mexican beauty Barbara Mori is now eying to work with superstar Shah Rukh Khan.

The 32-year-old actress has been praised for her sizzling chemistry with Hrithik in Anurag Basu directed 'Kites'.

But before she can foray into Bollywood, the model-turned actress needs to brush up her linguistic skills and learn Hindi.

Barbara, who was here with Hrithik and producer Rakesh Roshan for the promotion of their film, sought help from the father-son duo to translate questions thrown at her by the audience.

When asked if she has signed any new projects the actress replied in negative but added, "I want to work with Shah Rukh Khan."

Barbara and Hrithik were all praise for each other forming a mutual admiration society. The 36-year-old actor said that he has learnt alot from his Mexican co-star.

The onscreen couple seemed unfazed toward the lukewarm response of the critic and audience to their film.

While the actress, who has has worked in Mexican TV soaps and films like 'Inspiracion' and 'La Mujer De Mi Hermano', said 'Kites' was the best movie of her career.
Hrithik said that the 140-crore film is his labour of love straight from the heart which has garnered good reviews outside India.

"To each his own. I don't really trust them (critics). When I debuted in Bollywood they referred me as god and then after two years they said I am finished. So I would rather follow my heart and do what I like than try to please the critics," Hrithik said.

The film's international version 'Kites - The Remix' has been edited by Hollywood director Brett Ratner of 'Rush Hour' and 'X-Men: The Last Stand' fame, which will hit the theaters on May 28.

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Vaishali walks out on Shiney

Is Shiney Ahuja jinxed? It seems, actresses are walking out on Shiney Ahuja. The latest actress who refused to work with Shiney is Vaishali Desai, who has walked out of ‘Shaunya’.

Shiney’s career just started looking up, as he signed a film after being allegedly accused of raping his maid servant. But controversies refuse to leave the actor alone. As soon as he signed ‘Shaunya’, the lead actress Vaishali Desai walked out immediately.

Shiney's role was initially offered to Adhynan Suman but the producers felt Shiney was a better choice for the film.

Is Vaishali being judgmental or just concerned about her safety? ``It's personal," when we asked Vaishali why she's left the film. “A lot is being written about me that I left the film because of Shiney. I don’t want to comment on it and add fuel to the fire. But I have maintained that personal reasons made me refuse the film” says Vaishali, a former Miss India. Vishali Desai made her debut in Kal Kissne Dekha opposite Jackie Bhagnani.

But is she open to working with Shiney in future? “At this moment I can’t comment on the issue,” says a defiant Vaishali.

Shaunya is a horror flick which is being produced by Puja Bedi, neice of Bobby Bedi and goes on the floors in May itself. And Sayali Bhagat has replaced Vaishali as the main protagonist of the film.

Hrithik's star gazing

It's a story about a gymnast who wants to win the national championships but half way through his journey realises the futility of it all. It's one of the stories that Hrithik Roshan has read in recent times that he feels is in near-perfect synergy with his mind.

The book is author Dan Millman's No Ordinary Moments: A Peaceful Warrior's Guide to Daily Life. The 36-year-old actor, on the brink of a much-hyped release, and currently on a multicity tour in the USA, prefers not to crunch numbers, and instead chooses to dwell on the “magical life that the subconscious human mind propels you to travel towards”. It's a lingo that manages to stun you, given that film-wallahs are known to stick to the tried-and-tested a week before a major release.

Then again, given the puffs of dust that Kites has thrown up in the course of its making, perhaps it is tactful of the star to dwell on ordinary life. The actor refuses to be photographed, given that he is not “suitably prepped up” for the act. We try to cajole him into submission, urging that the processed pictures sent out by the PR-machinery hardly do them any justice, and this one is achingly beautiful.

He enters the sunny-spacious family room on the ninth floor of the Roshan residence in Pallazzo, Juhu, flops himself on a large dark blue couch, lights up a cigarette and manages to offer a welcome relief from the décor defined by an overdose of silver.

Craft has been at the heart of his métier as an actor - from looks to skills. It's been a decade since Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai; Hrithik spent years preparing for the big break and subsequently spent most of his waking hours honing his craft as an actor, even at the danger of becoming self-obsessive: he watched himself closely and had himself filmed at friends' parties, farmhouses, in the privacy of his room etc to perfect himself as a performer.

While all that paid off with the first big success and a string thereafter, he realised that it was also time to unlearn. “With the new film (Kites, popularised as a heart-rending love story, but clearly commensurate with speed and action), I knew that I had to let go completely, something I had only sporadically touched upon in the past.

I understood whatever I went through was only a preparation to get me ready for a role like this; right through films like Koi Mil Gaya, Lakshya, Jodha Akbar, etc... somewhere I knew that there was more to the world of acting,” he says. “All the craft I had built in the last ten years had to be wished away. Dhoom, for example, was all craft. But with this one I had to come out of the safety zone of a small pool and dive into the ocean,” says Hrithik. “I had to get used to enjoy letting me make a fool of myself.

You follow your instincts and do what you have to do without watching yourself. The craft is to have no mind; you just jump off and fly.” That is pretty much in sync with the time all those years ago when at his father Rakesh Roshan's behest he applied for a course in special effects in an American university and when selected, he decided that it was too much of a safety net to live within.

His father wished a more secure life for him much before either of them thought about Hrithik coming into films. Eventually, he tore up the acceptance letter, he says, for it was “going to weaken my thrust; if I had no safety net I could take that jump”. He bears no angst, he says, against the films that came between “Kaho Naa... and Koi Mil Gaya as those were the films where I was experimenting with forms set by senior actors.” That realisation resonates in his life as well. There are no bad experiences, he says, in between many cigarette puffs. “Films have taught me that life is a glass with a bottomless pit.

You tell yourself that once I get an award I will be happy and you start filling your ego with cars, etc, as much as you fill into that glass. So then you must come to a point where you become aware that it is not about filling it up, but enjoying the process of filling it up. And then if you fill it up with that much speed it will always give you an illusion of being full and you live content,” he observes. “I have been watching myself very closely, and have realised that we are all looking for love, so why all the angst and retaliation?”

All that sounds very well; so what would happen if he were to wake up one morning and find out that he is not a superstar anymore? Nothing, he says. Not true. “Yeah, stardom is a nice way to avoid queues.” What if you lose brand Hrithik Roshan? “Nothing will change; except that I will have to find a new way of putting food on the table.”

People around him will change. “Life will get more interesting then. It will then be a challenge and interesting to see how this dot would connect once I look back at it ten years hence. It will make my life a story book and I will be the hero.” That is until he ceases to be the hero.

Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Guzaarish, where he plays a wheel chair-bound dying man, a film for which he allowed himself to put on an inordinate amount of weight (he shows a picture of his rotund middle lolling over his belt on his Blackberry) is nearly done after which the actor gets busy prepping himself up for Zoya Akhtar's next, a film where three friends - Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akhtar and Abhay Deol - take a road trip in Spain. Road trips offer valuable time off, time to map the road ahead.

Mums, listen to your kids: Kajol

Bollywood has some and then a few more. Yummy mummies, we mean. But we chose the lovely actress Kajol to be TOI’s guest editor for this special Mother’s Day issue.

Not because she’s acting in Karan Johar’s Stepmom that will release later this year. But because she’s the only actress who twice in her hugely successful career has unselfishly stepped back from the top to gladly accept motherhood.

The first time after daughter Nysa, Kajol returned in 2006 to win the Filmfare Best Actress Award for Fanaa opposite Aamir Khan. Then this year, just after another stunning performance in My Name Is Khan with her favourite co-star Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol completed Stepmom and settled down to her second baby. It must take some doing. The actress, however, dismissed the putting-career-on-hold and making-a-comeback theory with a toss of her auburn hair.

“Your career is part of your life, your family is part of your life, and your whole life — your personality — is made of every part put together. It’s upto you to strike the right balance,” she said. “I learned from example. My own mother (the actress Tanuja) always put her family first. Even when she was working, we were her top priority, she gave us quality time — when she was there, she was with us 120 per cent. I’m lucky to have had her. And I hope to be like her...”

She’s glowing with the early stages of pregnancy, and she’s comfortable with her condition, she made no fuss about the great commute from her home to our office in peak summertime to take the chair for this issue. Dressed casually in a loose white top and black trousers, feet encased in soft slippers, she slipped into the role emphatically... brown eyes flashing with expression, fists thumping the table to make a point. When coffee and sandwiches were placed before her, Kajol’s face lit up. “I’m so pregrant, aren’t I,” she giggled.

She was unhappy with Mother’s Day, per se. “Mothers are fab and kids bring out the best in women,” she said, “but you can’t relegate your relationship with your mother to just one day in a year. For a child, the mother is God... the mother has the same responsibility to her child as God has to the world. And just as you wake up each morning and worship God whether you’re 14 or 40, you should respect your mother... even when you are grown up, in complete control of your life and are probably looking after her.”

And she had a word of caution for troubled mothers in today’s society of suicidal children: “They should listen to their kids... a mother’s gift to her kid should be the power of speech. Don’t be impatient. Don’t close yourself to your child by expecting her/him to be what you want them to be. Your message to them should be, ‘I love you for what you are and will support you whether you pass or fail your exams.’ Mothers should also stop to consider what they would do if their kid was suddenly taken away from them today. I would die! Compared to that, you can make make every situation work...”

There were more tidbits from this mother and mother-to-be even while she discussed work (“I’m a nice boring person, you won’t get gossip on me!”), babies, motherhood, growing up, families (“they teach you and make you who you are”), the need to discipline kids (“spanking is not bad as a means to get attention... it’s not the punishment, that’s much worse, and devious”) and pregnancy itself (“don’t become a mother unless you’re ready, don’t let this decision be thrust on you, because then everybody will suffer... especially your child”).

Plus, a final word of advice to mothers: “Advice itself is bad, don’t be weighed down by what society says your kid ought to be doing, rely on your own instincts and decisions. As a mother, you know what’s best for your kid, by learning, by instinct, by habit... And, practise what you preach. Your kid learns by watching you. In future, your child takes reference from you.” We had just one question for Kajol, did she subscribe to the public opinion that she was Bollywood’s yummy mummy? “Absolutely,” she declared, giving the Kuch Kuch Hota Hai smile, “I was yummy even before I had my baby!”

Akshay Kumar, the bowler

We've heard of actors carrying their roles home. But Akshay Kumar would be the first actor to take his part in "Patiala House" to the playing field. Getting trained as a bowler, Akshay says he is now almost as good as a national-level player.

"I'm working towards it. Practising my cricket gives me the biggest high," Akshay said.

Akshay is rapidly becoming an expert bowler. "I am not yet good enough to play national-level cricket but I am getting there. I've been taking bowling lessons for 'Patiala House' from one of the best trainers. I'm trying get to a national level. I'm very sporty by nature. So it was quite easy for me to pick it up," Akshay told IANS.

"Every morning I look forward to practising with Balwinder Singh Sandhu."

Akshay trains in cricket for a couple of hours every day. "I'm getting good enough to play beyond the film. And I will very soon. I promise you."

Directed by Nikhil Advani, "Patiala House" also stars Rishi Kapoor, Dimple Kapadia and Anushka Sharma.

Akshay reveals he has already worked with 52 directors and is still looking for filmmakers who can tap the best out of him.

"I'm still hungry. I want to work with directors who can help me tap emotions that I don't know about," the actor said.

Introspecting on his career, Akshay said: "I'm very happy with the kind of work I'm doing. I tried doing more serious films. But they were rejected. So I am back to comedy. Nikhil Advani's 'Patiala House' is not a comedy. But it has comic portions. Priyadarshan's 'Khatta Meetha' is a film on road mafia done in a light vein. That apart, I'm not signing any more films. I've been working the whole year and I need a break. Then I'll be doing another film with Vipul Shah."

So how was it like playing a loser in laugh riot "Housefull"?

"I enjoyed playing a loser more than any macho role I usually play. See, all us men are duffers underneath the swagger anyway. We may act cool for the ladies. But that's all an act. If you take away my wife, my designer clothes and my flashy car, I'm just a scared little boy at heart. Without the support system we're losers. In 'Housefull', I play an out-of-luck guy who gets caught in a crazy situation," Akshay said candidly.

But the actor had a ball doing "Housefull", where he has three wives.

"Not just the three ladies but also Riteish Deshmukh and Arjun Rampal. Riteish was great fun. Shooting was a playground with him around. He just cracks me up. We once put all the cutlery at the breakfast table in a hotel in Italy in Jiah Khan's bag and told the waiter to check her bag. Jiah took it sportingly.

"Arjun Rampal too has great comic timing. Lara Dutta is such an elegant lady and yet she can be one of the boys when it comes to comedy," he said.

In "Housefull", he also got to pay homage to Mithun Chakraborty and Dharmendra.

"Director Sajid Khan's sister Farah was doing the choreography. I suggested we put in the pelvic movements of Mithun-da and the extempore dance movements of Dharam-ji. It was my life-long ambition to dance like these two legends. They dance from their heart. I'm also a big fan of Dutt-Saab's (Sanjay Dutt) dance movements. I remember how taken up I was when 'Rocky' released. He used to make his long hair dance," the actor said.

So what about full-on actioners like the "Khiladi" series?

"I might do another 'Khiladi' film. Who knows about the future? I had said I'd never produce a film. Today I'm co-producing all my films, including Farah's 'Tees Maar Khan'," Akshay said.

Love, Amar Singh aur Dhokha

After acting as himself in films like Apne, Bombay Mittai and Charge Sheet, Amar Singh is nurturing his filmi ambitions. He is now set to produce a Bhojpuri film Dhokha.

The film, starring Manoj Tiwari and Jaya Prada, is based on his personal experiences in the political world, where dhokha is certainly not in short supply.

Although Amar Singh remained unavailable for comment, Manoj Tiwari, the lead actor, said, “Yes, Amar Singhji is producing the film.

We had gone to a remote village, Rampur, when we had this conversation first. I requested him to act in one of my films and he agreed instantly.

After that, while we were travelling, he told me that he should produce a film. It is his concept and Dhokha is his title. I don’t wish to reveal anything about the subject but knowing him, one can expect the unexpected.”

There’s plenty of fodder for a crackling script as politics throws up more surreal scenarios than any scriptwriter can dream up.

Manoj Tiwari added, “Though he knows all the big stars like Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt and others, I’m happy he wants me to act in his film.

I am also excited about working with Jaya Prada. I will meet Amar bhaiyya on May 10 to take it forward.”