The Haider Effect

No Ma or Bhabhi Roles, Please • When Chemistry Beats Fidelity

Shahid Kapoor is apparently so thrilled with the response to Haider and to his own performance in the film that he’s already begun badgering Vishal Bhardwaj to put Kaminey 2 into production at the earliest. The actor and the filmmaker are also feeling vindicated that their approach to making the film—deferring their salaries to keep the film’s budget down in exchange for a slice of the film’s profits—has yielded positive results for both of them, and for UTV, which bankrolled the project.

Last weekend, Shahid took a break from filming Shandaar (with director Vikas Bahl and Alia Bhatt) in the UK, to travel to the Rome Film Festival where he was joined by Vishal for a screening of Haider. The duo soaked in the appreciation as the film took the People’s Choice Award in the World Cinema category, becoming the first Indian film to land that honour. It was in Rome, apparently, overwhelmed by the continuing raves the film was drawing, that Shahid urged Vishal to get moving on his Kaminey sequel. The director is believed to have responded that he was very close to cracking the script.

No Ma or Bhabhi Roles, Please

Raveena Tandon, who turned 40 last week and sportingly embraced the milestone, has admitted that she’s very flattered to still be considered a sex symbol long after she gave up an active acting career.

Asked in an interview recently to name the songs that put her on the map, she picked Mohra’s memorable rain song Tip tip barsa paani in which she famously swayed her hips, dressed in a sheer yellow sari, along with former boyfriend Akshay Kumar. “I still have boys coming up to me and telling me how that song ushered them from adolescence to maturity,” she explained, before adding cheekily, “I’m not sure what they mean, and I don’t want to know. But I’m going to take it as a compliment.”

Some months ago the actress performed an item song in Anurag Kashyap’s jazz-age epic Bombay Velvet, and she recently signed on for a key role in My Brother Nikhil director Onir’s new film Shab, when Sangeeta Bijlani dropped out after committing to make her comeback with that part.

Raveena has also reportedly completed a Bengali film whose release she’s awaiting, and has spread the word among her filmi friends that she’s open to working more frequently. But she won’t play the typical sister and bhabhi roles, she has warned them. A source tells me she was also approached to star in Zoya Akhtar’s Dil Dhadakne Do, and while she wasn’t against the idea of playing Anil Kapoor’s wife, she didn’t exactly fancy playing mother to Priyanka Chopra and Ranveer Singh.

So much for embracing her age!

When Chemistry Beats Fidelity

Unit hands who recently returned from the outdoor schedule of their latest film have been chattering incessantly about the chemistry between the film’s lead pair. Both attached— one married, the other in a (supposedly) committed relationship— the actors nevertheless threw caution to the wind and made their fondness of each other very public.

The crew didn’t read much into their ‘closeness’ initially; the actress is well-known for sharing very friendly vibes with all her male co-stars in a usually platonic way.

But the gossip really intensified when it became known that the pair was secretly hooking up after pack-up. The personal staff of both the actors were the first to figure out what was going on—as they invariably are—when sleepovers in each other’s rooms became hard to hide. Before long the entire unit became aware of the couple’s off-hours shenanigans.

The discussion among unit members quickly shifted to matters of fidelity, and the teeny-weeny issue that both actors were in relationships with very loving partners. But, as someone pointed out rather accurately, at least one of the two partners concerned has been through the exact scenario before in a previous relationship… foolishly used as a cover-up to hide a much bigger betrayal that was only unearthed much later.

Some people never change.

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Rajeev Masand

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