* Star economics: Sushant has reneged on his word for a coveted film. * Comeback: Kangana has made a wise decision with Krrish 3. * Newsmaker: Mallika Sherawat knows how to stay in the spotlight. * Aamir’s show: The Khan has trumped Abhishek in Dhoom3.
A betrayal to remember
Sushant Singh Rajput is just two movies old and already a star. He is from that all-too-rare breed of actors who have worked their way up in Bollywood without any family connections.
He took a route — the leap from television to movies — that Shah Rukh Khan did once upon a time but most have failed to emulate. From playing lead characters in television serials, Rajput got recognised as movie material when he took part in a reality dance show and impressed everyone.
Even then it took some time to get a role in movies and, when it finally landed, it was as one of the three main actors in Kai Po Che!, the screen adaptation of celebrity writer Chetan Bhagat’s novel The 3 Mistakes Of My Life. The man who gave him that break was director Abhishek Kapoor. The movie did reasonably well commercially and critically. Rajput especially got rave reviews for his screen presence. Yashraj Productions signed him on for Shuddh Desi Romance which released recently. It co-starred Parineeti Chopra and was a surprise hit. Rajput had arrived. He went on to get two dream roles. One was a chance to work with a superstar director, Rajkumar Hirani, and a superstar actor, Aamir Khan, in their movie Peekay. And then there was the project Paani, which is being made by Shekhar Kapur, an internationally acclaimed filmmaker who is returning behind the camera after a hiatus. Rajput’s resume is now of an actor whose future is settled with success.
Unfortunately, it has come at a not-so-nice price. He had committed to his mentor Abhishek Kapoor that he would act in his next film Fitoor. But then Rajput realised that the dates were clashing with the schedule of Paani. Rajput chose not to do Fitoor. Some would say that is a little ungrateful.
Wise turnaround
Some time back things had not been going so well for Kangana Ranaut. Two powerful personalities of Bollywood, Sanjay Dutt and Ajay Devgn, had more or less blacklisted her while they were working together in Dutt’s home production Rascals. The reason was not entirely clear but rumours said that Devgn had been having a relationship with her that went sour.
Also that Kangana had been tom-tomming how all the actors in Rascals were chasing her. In any case, the movie bombed and her career took a beating. But, being the survivor she is, Kangana is back again in the Rakesh Roshan movie Krrish 3, which has Hrithik Roshan in the lead.
Given the history of the prequels, the movie will, in most probability, be a superhit. In interviews nowadays, she revealed how she almost didn’t get the film. After her role was edited out in Kites, which also had Hrithik and was produced by his father, she had felt bitter.
When Roshan approached her for Krrish, she had turned him down and then realised that she had been foolhardy. It was only when he again offered her the role that she took it without hesitation. Considering her status in Bollywood, that was probably the wisest thing she could have done.
Mallika bytes
Mallika Sherawat is the original new-age Bollywood starlet who started off the whole thing about being famous for being famous. Her’s has been a relentless self-publicity drive. There was a time when even though she was nowhere near an A-list actress, her recognition was just as much. Her formula of making shocking statements to garner headlines was later emulated by a whole second rung of starlets.
When her appeal began to get stale, Mallika graduated to other shores; dividing her time between Los Angeles and Mumbai. She would be seen in the unlikeliest of places like the Cannes film festival. Recently, she was back in her homeland in a second avatar on television.
In the reality show The Bacholerette India she is being wooed by a whole range of suitors. And they are all getting a taste of how strange Mallika’s company can be. One of the things she demanded from them was that they do bungee jumping to show that they care, and are capable of, in her words, “providing for me.” Besides the television show, she also hit the headlines for doing what she does best —shoot her mouth off. She said that the most eligible bachelor in India was the Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, who is a controversial rightwing politician aspiring to be the prime minister. She then posted a Youtube video of her singing Happy Birthday on his birthday. That went viral. Recently, in another video she expressed a desire to be stuck on a lonely island with the Tamil superstar Rajnikant. That got her some publicity, too. The trick is of course to say unexpected things but it is a little puzzling that all her dream men are old enough to be grandfathers.
The final say?
Promos of Dhoom 3, the latest in the very successful movie franchise of Yashraj Productions, have begun to be aired on television and predictably it is mostly Aamir Khan, who is playing a negative character for a change, being featured in it. Poor Abhishek Bachchan, who is the supposed hero of the film, looks completely overshadowed. But that is pure commercial consideration.
What is interesting is that Aamir, who is obsessive about his movies, is said to want to employ strategies like showing it to focus audience groups for feedback before the movie is released. He has done this earlier in his own productions. The big question is whether Yashraj head Aditya Chopra will humour him. It was always going to be interesting how the two work together. Yashraj is an institution which mostly sticks to tried and tested formulas. Aamir is a new-age marketing innovator who uses his star power to the hilt to promote his films.
He is known to be involved in every aspect of the movie he is a part of. Will Yashraj allow him to decide the final cut of the movie and how it is publicised? If they have any sense they should, considering Aamir’s superb record at even making offbeat movies superhits.
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