Filmi Fundas
The darker side of life
Many crewmembers have had to battle life-threatening situations during the shooting of a film. The crew of Vidya Balan’s Kahaani is no different. Kahaani has been shot extensively across every nook and cranny of Kolkata. However for the crew, capturing real locations on film came at a price. The crew member were beaten up, stripped and faced death threats by the locals who were disturbed by a pregnant Vidya attracting attention on the roads of the city.
Confirms director Sujoy Ghosh, who is still recovering from the experience, “The residents of Kolkata were unhappy with the chaos. Many a time, my assistants were assaulted for stopping crowds from entering the frame. I was stripped once right in the middle of the road. I had to run almost naked to save myself from the crowd.”
Despite acquiring all required permissions, shoots were cancelled more than once, causing losses running into lakhs. Adds Ghosh, “We were shooting at the Kalighat Police Station and there were certain local artisans who were delivering idols that day. We had to quickly whisk Vidya away from the location. My production guys ended up getting into a scuffle with them.”
Maharaja Features
Two weddings and a reception
After a lavish Hindu wedding, Genelia D’Souza and Riteish Deshmukh tied the knot in the Christian style too. The couple celebrated their post wedding party at Bungalow 9 Restaurant, Bandra. Post all the ceremonies, the couple had a grand reception which was attended by the who’s who of Bollywood and politics.
One too many roles
Sanjeev Kumar essayed nine characters in the 1974-film Naya Din Nayi Raat.
Kamal Hassan beat that with his portrayal of ten characters in the K S Ravikumar-directed Dashavataram in 2008.
Priyanka Chopra went one notch higher by playing 12 roles in Ashutosh Gowarikar’s What’s Your Rashee a year later.
And now, Kay Kay Menon is set to break even Priyanka’s record by essaying 13 roles in Makrand Deshpande’s ‘Dream Man’.
Superstitions galore
Actors and their superstitions have always made for interesting stories.
From canning a shot next to a particular tree, to choosing the letters of a film’s title to even selecting the costumes of their crew members — their beliefs and theories have always been baffling. However, the last person one would imagine on this list of eccentric people would be the carefree Salman Khan. But not anymore as rumour has it that Salman Khan doesn’t want to make any changes to Chulbul Pandey in the sequel of Dabangg.
It seems that Salman is treading extra cautiously for the sequel of Dabangg and has supposedly done away with the look testing procedure altogether as far as his character Chulbul Pandey is concerned. He has announced that he will sport the exact same look in the sequel as well.
