Waiting and Watching

Priyanka Chopra hasn’t signed a new Hindi film in months, but the Quantico star has been reading scripts and preparing a wish list of potential projects, it appears. According to the grapevine, PC is waiting until the release of Baywatch in May to decide if her next movie should be in India or back in the US again.

One of the projects she’s reportedly zeroed in on is a heroine-driven film with Pink director, Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury (aka Tony). Little is known about the film, except for the fact that it’s been written by Pink scribe Ritesh Shah, who especially flew to New York to meet PC to give her a complete narration of the script recently. More than likely she will produce the film under her own banner.

But timelines are currently up in the air as the fate of Baywatch—and the Hollywood offers she is likely to receive in the wake of its release—will determine which way she leans. Insiders say Priyanka is ‘very serious’ about a ‘full-fledged’ career in Hollywood, but is aware that ‘things don’t happen overnight’. If there’s a steady stream of solid movie offers, she’ll be happy to say goodbye to Quantico after she wraps up season two. ‘It has done what it was required to, for her.’ Turn her into a household name in America, that is.

Bieber Fever

So it turns out Jacqueline Fernandez has been roped in to play tour guide to Justin Bieber when the 23-year-old pop star arrives in Mumbai for a concert in May. The Chittiyaan Kalaiyaan star has admitted to being a die-hard Belieber (yeesh!) and has been saying that she’s already made a list of places around the city that she wants to show him.

Meanwhile, Sonakshi Sinha is expected to perform at least one number with Bieber at the concert, while other millennial favourites like Alia Bhatt and Varun Dhawan have promised to put in an appearance.

Zoos and animal shelters will likely remain shut during Bieber’s visit, whose liking for simians has been well documented—particularly that incident when he entered Munich with his pet capuchin monkey in 2013, only to have it confiscated by custom officials.

The Fault in Our Stars

A respected filmmaker, considered by many as one of the most relevant directors in Bollywood today, is currently licking his wounds after the abysmal failure of his most recent—not to mention most ambitious—film. The filmmaker has also reportedly been telling friends that the very making of the film was an exhausting affair. A “losing battle”, he described it. As it turns out, the director was having a hard time with two of the three principal actors. One of his two leading men, with whom this was his third project, was unwilling to summon the commitment the filmmaker required. The actor grumbled incessantly about shooting in “uncomfortable” locations and demanded “five-star hotel treatment” in remote rural areas.

The director has been complaining just as vehemently about his leading lady, who he claims gave him a hard time throughout production. Despite having received a full-bound script months before the shoot, he says the actress clashed with him frequently over key script decisions while they were on set. “One appreciates that an artiste is invested in the film to this extent, but the set is not the place to have disagreements,” he is believed to have said to his inner circle.

The film’s failure will likely hit the director hard, who knows it will be difficult to land big budgets and big stars for his future ventures. And while he doesn’t blame his actors for the performance of the film, he has said—in no uncertain terms—that working with his actors on set was not conducive to his own creative growth. His famous last words on the subject: “I’d forgotten [at the time of signing them] that everything one hears about actors is usually true.”

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Rajeev Masand

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