And yet soon after he became a star, he was arriving hours late for shooting schedules and even developed a reputation for rash behaviour. Take some time back for instance, when for no apparent reason he slapped a man who had come to watch a shoot in which he was participating.
But Govinda is old hat now. The latest star to make news for starry tantrums is Arjun Kapoor. He too has had quite a good reputation for being professional and well-mannered. But now that producers and directors are dependent on him, has he turned character? A few months ago, there were rumours suggesting so.
He had been shooting for Half Girlfriend, the movie based on the Chetan Bhagat book, when Arjun reportedly went on a partying overdrive. It was said that he would call friends over every night and they would be drinking into the early hours. And the bill, which was said to be around Rs1 lakh for every such night, would then have to be paid by the producers.
Even his acting began to affected because of the partying and when the director Mohit Suri confronted him, there was a nasty showdown. Recently, when reporters encountered Arjun at an event, they asked him about this controversy. He flatly denied that any such thing had happened. And added that there had been only one party and that too at the insistence of his producers to celebrate his birthday.
He said that as a producer’s son he knew what they had to go through and he would never do something like that. Also his grandmother had just passed away and so he wasn’t in a state of mind to party anyway. He blamed the rumours on some deliberate malicious conspiracy. Since his name is figuring in something like this for the first time, perhaps Arjun should get the benefit of doubt. But chances are that if he was indeed involved, then more such stories will surface in future since stardom changes personalities.
But it is always good to be professional, if only to save oneself from the fate of those like Govinda who as soon as he lost market value was dropped by producers in a hurry. Arjun has not had any super-hits to his name in the last two years and would do well to learn this lesson early on.
Bold Pakistani star opens the door for shy Ranbir
A Pakistani actor, Fawad Khan has now become a star in his own right among the Bollywood audience. In the short time that he has been in Hindi films, he has developed a huge female fan following.
He played a gay character in his last outing, Kapoor & Sons, and that too came in for rave reviews. He will now soon be seen in the Karan Johar-produced Ae Dil Hai Mushkil. In this he is acting along with Ranbir Kapoor.
Ranbir belongs to the higher echelon of superstars, and while they too have been experimenting with a variety of characters, the one that they haven’t done so far is of a gay person. But Ranbir says that might change now. In an interview to a newspaper, he said that he too was initially wary of playing such a role but that after Fawad’s role in Kapoor & Sons, he thinks that he would be willing to do it. He said that door had been opened by Fawad and they could now walk through it.
SRK and Forbes ranking
Forbes recently had Shah Rukh Khan in its list of the world’s highest paid actors. He ranked number 8 in it with an annual income of US$33 million, just ahead of Akshay Kumar with US$31.5 million.
That might not be an accurate reflection of star power in Bollywood since Salman who is undoubtedly at the top was number 14 in the list with US$28.5 million. But no one would disagree that Shah Rukh is still at the zenith of the Bollywood star system and, if anything, his fees might be even more than what Forbes showed, given the opaque nature of Bollywood finances.
And his stature does not brook playing a role in a movie in which the title belongs to another character. Recently, there were rumours that Shah Rukh would be part of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s next opus, Padmavati. But soon after that came news that it might not happen because Shah Rukh had wanted the title changed because it was of the female protagonist in the script.
That essentially was changing the whole premise of the movie as Bhansali had imagined it. Perhaps that was the reason why it is said that instead of Shah Rukh, Ranveer Singh has gotten the role now.
Priyanka not going away
Priyanka Chopra is doing well in America, what with the success of the television show Quantico in which she played an FBI agent. And now she has been roped in for the second season, in which she plays a CIA agent. This now means one more year of exposure to the US audience.
Then there is the movie Baywatch in which she has a plum role opposite the Hollywood star Dwayne Johnson. That movie will release sometime next year. All in all, for some time she will have to be based in the United
States and that is only given her present commitments. There will surely be other offers, given the high profile she has garnered there.
There is thus speculation that she might now relocate to the United States. One newspaper said that she might be there for as long as five years and she will do a Bollywood movie only if it really excites her. Priyanka herself however dispels the rumours of resettling abroad.
She tweeted after one such rumour, ‘I really wake up to such amusing news sometimes.i am filming Quantico in nyc my home is mumbai. No LA in the pic!’
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