 | « Back to article | Print this article |
Subhash K Jha gives us the latest from Bollywood...
Are Kangana Ranaut and trouble getting to be good friends?
Ahead of the release of her ambitious film Simran which has been in the news for Kangana's 'true confessions' styled marketing.
The censor board has pulled up Simran for several cuss words.
"Kangana's character speaks from the heart... she speaks first, thinks later," a member of Simran's creative team tells me.
"There is no filter in her thought flow. When the censors saw the film they did not appreciate the gaalis and colourful language."
Director Hansal Mehta, a champion of freedom of expression, had taken his previous film Aligarh to the tribunal when the censor board ordered a cut in a courtroom scene.
Will Hansal get tough or just erase the edges from Kangana's Simran-talk?
***
Ranveer Singh as Arjun Reddy?
Arjun Reddy, the sensational Telugu hit featuring Vijay Devarakonda's extraordinary coming of age performance, is all set to be made into Hindi.
Vijay, whose performance has rocked Andhra Pradesh and Telangana's collective conscience, is unlikely to seen in the Hindi remake.
Apparently, the Hindi version will see Ranveer Singh in the lead.
Says a source close to the development, "The producers have met Ranveer and he has shown a lot of interest in the project. They will show him the film in the next couple of days and a decision will be taken."
Vijay's pitch-perfect performance as a man descending into a hellish blackhole of drugs, alcohol and self-destruction after a broken relationship is not being considered for the Hindi version as his Hindi is said to be weak.
***
Arjun's months of prep for Daddy
Very rarely do actors get a chance to prepare as intensely as Arjun Rampal did for Daddy.
"This was my first real-life character. And I had to give it my best shot," Arjun says.
"I neither wanted my Arun Gawli to be a spiffy caricature nor a faithful replication of the original. I've worked very hard to look like Gawli. But more than the appearance," the actor says, "I wanted to get to the core of his personality, to understand how a man with so many criminal cases against him is considered a messiah by his people."
"Was it just the money and largesse which endeared him to the poor? I think there was more. I've tried to understand the two sides of Gawli's personality, the criminal and the messiah."
Arjun spent months preparing to "be" Gawli. He watched documentaries and video footage on the gangster to get a hang on how Gawli walked, spoke and lived.
"It was a challenge, But at the end of it all, Gawli approved. So I feel all the effort was worth it."
