War 2: le riprese in Italia

A partire da domani 18 settembre la troupe del film War 2 sarà a Siena per girare alcune sequenze. Nel dettaglio:

- 18 settembre: ore 7.00/13.00, piazza del Campo e palazzo Berlinghieri; ore 8.00/10.00, torre del Mangia; ore 14.00/16.00, via della Diana; ore 16.00/19.00, via San Quirico e via Tommaso Pendola.

- 19 settembre: ore 7.00/14.00, piazza del Campo; ore 15.00/17.00, torre del Mangia; ore 15.00/20.00, Museo Civico.

Secondo i media indiani, la troupe soggiornerà in Italia per un paio di settimane. Altri set verranno allestiti a Venezia, sul lago di Como, a Napoli, a Sorrento e in Costiera Amalfitana. 

War 2, sequel di War, campione indiano d'incassi del 2019, è diretto da Ayan Mukerji e interpretato da Hrithik Roshan, Jr NTR e Kiara Advani. Vi ricordo che anche War era stato parzialmente girato nel nostro Paese (clicca qui).

- 'War 2' makers hire local Italian security ahead of romantic song shoot with Hrithik Roshan and Kiara Advani, Upala KBR, Mid-Day, 10 settembre 2024: 'Mid-Day has learnt that the unit will head to Italy, where they will shoot a romantic song featuring the leading man and Kiara Advani from September 18. (...) A source tells us, “The Italy schedule will begin from September 18 and go on for about 15 days. Ayan has allotted the first six days for the song shoot. Considering Hrithik and Kiara are two of the hottest actors in Bollywood today, the director wants the video to do justice to their glamour. The romantic track, composed by Pritam, is being mounted on a lavish scale, and will be shot in exotic locales of Venice, Tuscany, Lake Como, Naples, Amalfi Coast, and Sorrento Peninsula. After the number, the unit will can a high-octane action sequence and some dramatic scenes before flying back to India by early October.” Roshan and Advani’s fresh pairing is one of the highlights of War 2. The source adds that the makers have, so far, ensured that their images are not leaked in the media - something that they will keep an eye out for during the international schedule too. “An army of local Italian security has been hired to comb these locations prior to the team’s arrival. They will also be part of the shoot to ensure that no images make their way online,” says the insider'.

- Bollywood arriva in Piazza del Campo, in città le riprese del film War 2, Siena News, 11 settembre 2024: 'Il teatro dei Rinnovati sarà la base d’appoggio per i registi e per le comparse. Autorizzato anche l’uso dei droni dalle 6 alle 10, anche se si attende l’ok del ministero della Cultura. La All Around Globe, società che insieme a Pointmedia Italia ha fatto la richiesta a Palazzo Pubblico, verserà 90 mila euro di tariffa e altri 5 mila di sponsorizzazione per il restauro del Buongoverno'. 

Anurag Kashyap talks about his fight with KJo, meeting with SRK

Vi segnalo l'intervista concessa da Anurag Kashyap a Mayank Shekhar, pubblicata lo scorso 12 giugno da Mid-Day. Il testo include il video dell'intervista integrale. Anurag Kashyap talks about his fight with KJo, meeting with SRK:

'The first time ever that filmmaker Imtiaz Ali saw what a portfolio looked like (...) was that of an actor called Anurag Kashyap. Back then, Ali was in college in Delhi, helping out a local TV serial crew, when Kashyap approached him with his portfolio. "It was 1992. (...) I had just discovered theatre, and was told that you need to get pictures clicked, if you want work. I did, after collecting Rs 3000, which was a big sum then. And I started doing a lot of acting on stage, and I did some films. (...) Also, (...) Imtiaz (...) was my co-star. (...) We don't talk about it. Imtiaz will kill me. (...) The good thing about being a bad actor is you know how to extract great performances," Kashyap tells me later. Which in his case, I'm told, notoriously involves hardly ever saying "action" or "cut" on set. Often, no lines for actors to mug up, let alone extensive rehearsals, before shoot. It's a process only the best can survive. Ali, of course, played the '93 Bombay bomb blast accused Yakub Memon in Kashyap's first release, Black Friday 2007. He played a bigger role in his life, if you consider that Kashyap used to shack up at Ali's place while the latter was doing a post-grad course at Mumbai's Xavier Institute of Communications XIC.

This is also how Kashyap first met his key associate, Vikramaditya Motwane. (...) "I couldn't get into XIC, and was living in Imtiaz's room. Aarti Bajaj, my first wife and permanent editor for both mine and Imtiaz's films, was a year junior. Vikramaditya Motwane was Aarti's classmate. That's how we knew each other. But we really became friends during the shoot of [Deepa Mehta's] Water. Vikram was an assistant, and I was writing dialogues. The shoot got stalled [due to protests], and we spent a lot of time in Benares. Thereafter, I kept meeting him because he was first assistant director AD to Vishal Bhardwaj in his first film called Barf, before Maqbool - that never got made. (...) That was sometime around 2000. Vikram was one of the sound designers on Paanch. And because I was scared of shooting songs, and he had been Sanjay Leela Bhansali's assistant, I asked him to direct the songs. He had two credits in the film - sound designer, and director of songs. It was a first for many people - Bosco-Caesar as choreographer, (...) Aarti Bajaj as editor. Abbas Tyrewala was the lyricist in the film and Vishal Bhardwaj did the music. Both of them, Vikram, I and others, used to hang out together."

"Then, there was Sriram Raghavan (...) and a whole lot of others - part of another gang. Even Tigmanshu Dhulia, Irrfan and others were all close to my brother [Abhinav]. That was the third gang. I was the centre-point, everywhere. And then I had another friends' circle, with (...) Zoya Akhtar and the lot. When I wrote a script, I had way too many boards to bounce off. And that's what we did! I was a huge fan of Sriram Raghavan's Raman Raghav [a docu-drama on a serial killer that Kashyap remade in 2016]. (...) Then a strange thing happened, with a script I wrote officially, for the first time (...) - with Kamal Swaroop Om Dar-B-Dar as director. For that film, I found an actor I was a fan of from Delhi stage, called Manoj Bajpayee. I put the film together. But it never happened. Nobody was showing faith in Manoj. He was going through a hard time and doing Ram Gopal Varma's Daud, which is when Ramuji said he wanted to make a film [Satya] with Manoj. And asked if he knew of a writer for it. Without having seen any of my written works, Manoj took me to Ram Gopal Varma." (...)

But that he's also a liberal raconteur: "Oh, one of my favourite stories is about Mahesh Bhatt. He happened to me, right before Ram Gopal Varma. He got me to write films. And Mukesh Bhatt [his brother, and producer] was very miserly with money. I was struggling for rent. Pooja Bhatt was the nicest and kindest; I would tell her to talk to her dad. Then I just walked up to [Mahesh] Bhatt saab once and said that I'd rather be a carpenter than work in his office. With his brother [Mukesh] around, he didn't say a word. When I was leaving, he came down, said, - Don't ever change. - And he put Rs 10,000 in my hand. That was big money in 1994-1995." Years later, at a post-screening event in a film festival abroad, Kashyap was narrating the first part of the story above. He heard a voice from the audience. (...) "Bhatt saab was sitting in the crowd. I got so emotional. I have had funny incidents like these." (...) "There was a time when Mukul Anand was making Trimurti 1995. I wanted to work with him as an assistant. I would call his house land-line. Every call was a rupee gone. And he was always busy. Third time I said, - (...) [This is producer Subhash Ghai, tell him not to show up on the sets from tomorrow], - and hung up. Now when somebody trolls me on social media, I just remember my time!" 

There is then the moment he randomly landed up at Shah Rukh Khan's bungalow Mannat he mistakenly calls it Jannat on Bandstand: "I was hungry and I walked into his house, using our college connection [both went to Hansraj in Delhi]. I remember him feeding me. He only knew how to make omelette." And then, there are the more famous spats: (...) "Karan Johar gave an interview calling me a psychopath. Till then we had not met. I called him a fat kid, who still thinks he is in school. (...) I also said something about Anil Kapoor in the interview that became a headline. But people always knew I was childlike." (...) He's gone to the extent of rescuing actor Rajpal Yadav from Andheri railway station, since he was returning to his hometown, having given up. That's when, Kashyap says, he first met the nondescript Nawazuddin Siddiqui, standing next to Yadav. (...) Scorsese, (...) after having watched GoW, invited him to be on the jury of the Marrakech film festival. Before Scorsese walked in, Kashyap was smoking outside with the Oscar winning Italian director Paolo Sorrentino, without knowing it was Sorrentino! Both were nervously puffing away. (...) Or this other time, Kashyap was in the same room as Francis Ford Coppola, "Sophia Coppola, his daughter, was with him. He is old. I kept staring at him for so long that he made me sit on his lap and said, now talk to me!".'

Zoya Akhtar: Everybody in my family has a National Award except me

Vi segnalo l'intervista concessa da Zoya Akhtar a Mayank Shekhar, pubblicata ieri da Mid-Day. Zoya Akhtar: Everybody in my family has a National Award except me:

'Little is known about her life up until her rather belated directorial debut at 36-plus, with Luck By Chance (2009), although she'd been working as a film professional for around 18 years before that. Very little worth knowing, Zoya casually reckons, jogging back to age 19, when she started interning for a copy-writer's job at a creative agency - simultaneously reading sociology at Bombay's St. Xavier's College. "I remember watching Salaam Bombay! (1988), being madly in love, and going: I want to direct. And I don't know what I'm going to make. Because Hindi films were not my scene then. Out of the blue, when I was about 21, I got a job with Mira Nair on [the sets of] Kamasutra (1996)." You can find her in a cameo appearance as one of the Kamasutra girls, "an extra part," as she puts it, because ADs are frequently expected to fill-in or add to the human backdrop on shoots. Of all her past associates, Mira as director appears to have left a strong impression on Zoya: "Mira is just special, you can see that. When she is talking to you, you are the only person in the world. She makes people feel special. She knows everybody on a crew by name. I love that about her. And I love her aesthetics."

Post Kamasutra, Zoya recalls, "I started working mainly on American projects that came to India. Went to NYU [New York University] for a diploma [in filmmaking]. Stayed back in New York. Got a job, thanks to Ismail Merchant, in a small, cool, indie film called Side Streets, directed by Tony Gerber." She returned to Bombay as a freelance, professional AD, of which there were only four in all of Bollywood, who did a lot of foreign films and Indian work: "Reema [Kagti], [director] Apoorva Lakhia, and me. Then Kiran Rao came in." Zoya's credits during this phase include Mahesh Mathai's Bhopal Express (1999) and Dev Benegal's Split Wide Open (1999). She chose to specialise in the casting department, because there, "you get to direct actors, with a script," and that's what she ever wanted to learn/master anyway. She was the casting director on Farhan [Akhtar]'s first film Dil Chahta Hai (DCH, 2001), and thereafter Armaan (2003), her mother Honey's directorial debut. Okay did she personally pick/cast that balloon-lover boyfriend in Dil Chahta Hai? "Oh that's actually Hassan, a childhood friend of Farhan. But we handpicked everyone, so to speak. There are very interesting cameos. Kiran Rao is one of the girlfriends in Goa. She'd come to do all the extras' casting for the film's Goa leg!"

Between freelance AD-ing, Zoya had been ideating all along for her debut feature. It's mildly ironic that while so cued into casting, she was unable to kick off her first film for want of a lead actor, for almost a decade that she'd been ready to direct. And the one she eventually cast for the lead role, in her directorial debut (Luck By Chance, 2009) was her brother, Farhan, who'd been around all along! "You cannot cast someone, unless they are ready. And feel that they want to do this. It took Farhan a while to get there - that he wants to act, and that he is a really good actor." While practically the entire Bollywood A-list came down for cameos in Luck By Chance, including both Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan (guessing, for the first time in the same film, although not in the same frame), Farhan was the seventh star to read/consider/hear the script. Hrithik Roshan played the second lead. "Luck By Chance is a book that I am going to write one day, about how that film got made," Zoya sighs. Can't wait. It'd be quite a telling tinsel-town tale, given that nobody in Bombay does it. And Zoya is perfectly positioned to - not just as the quintessential insider, but as someone who can surprise you with her adorably random zaniness, on occasion. Recently at an interview she called herself the love-child of directors Karan Johar and Anurag Kashyap. What does that mean? "That I am halfway between Indie and commercial, you know." (...)

And while her films primarily deal with real, human, often raw emotions, there is this carefree cattiness that inevitably slips in too. It's only fair that we dig into a couple of stories behind some stellar, surprising choices she's made so far. For example, why/how/when did a ladies' bag, called Bagwati, bag a proper part in the breezy masterpiece Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara? "That comes from Reema and a close friend of ours, Shai Heredia, who's an academic, award-winning documentary filmmaker, and hysterically funny. She and Reema were on a road trip, and they kept talking to Shai's bag. Think they were just tripping! We just put it into Zindagi." It was Zoya's second film, with Farhan and Hrithik back on her frame, but in a much wider canvas, although the script started out in her head as a small, cathartic, road movie, about three boys in a car - for all the road trips she's taken in her life. Over time, of course, the script "developed a life of its own".

The film she co-wrote after was Reema's Talaash. It's a supernatural thriller that, by the way, was based on a true story, that happened to her! "You have to stop. I am going to be the crazy lady that goes on interviews and says all this shit. I know it sounds really crazy, and I don't want to be propagating this nonsense. But, I had a strange experience on Haji Ali, while a bunch of us were driving back from a nightclub. We thought we had hit a naked woman in the middle of the road. Everybody was freaking out. This is something I told Reema about, and where Talaash came from. I am not going to repeat this story, ever again!"

Okay how about the dog called Pluto, who's the narrator/POV of Dil Dhadakne Do; where does he come from? "From my super-smart, intelligent beagle Zen, who passed away last year. You can find him on my Insta page, Zen Akhtar. Zen would look at us as though he is watching National Geographic - that we are the animals, and he is like, 'What are they doing?' That's Pluto. Even the way the film is shot [as a result] is observational - there are no close ups, only 'wides'." After a preview screening for Aamir Khan and his wife, Kiran Rao, both of whom Zoya makes it a point to get a feedback from before her film's final cut, she asked Aamir if he'd like to voice the dog: "He was, like, after these many years, you have offered me the voice of a dog? I said, please do it. He was, like, yeah, totally! And he just came [on-board], like a sweetheart. It was great!"

Is there anything she'd like to change about Dil Dhadakne Do? "I think the title. Would have been nicer [if it had] a little more gravitas." How about the climax (that was rather OTT, compared to the rest of the film's tone)? "I actually liked the climax (of the mom, dad, sister jumping off the ship, with lifeboats to chase down brother/Ranveer Singh's character). The whole metaphor of the trip is that you can't get rid of anyone. Family is what you are stuck with. You can't just walk out the door. Eventually, when shit hits the fan, they are the only ones who will pull you up too. So when everyone tells me, I don't like the climax; I am like, cool, so what would you do? Till now nobody has given me a better ending. If there is one, I'd be like, damn!"

What did upset Zoya even before the release of Dil Dhadakne Do though was people taking the piss out of the picture for it being centred on lives of the super-privileged - intended also as a barb against movies that Zoya had directed thus far. "Firstly I don't think it was criticism. There is nothing for me to take home from it. It is like somebody seeing a trailer of Gully Boy and saying, oh, this is about poor people. And I made Made in Heaven, along with Gully Boy. And that is about very rich people! I was being interviewed by this woman wearing diamonds and solitaires, and she was telling me, it [the film] is about rich people. I was, like: Would it bother you, if your husband has an affair? Why? But you have solitaires on, it shouldn't bother you! What does it even mean?"

Before Gully Boy - set in a Mumbai slum and the city's underground rap scene - released, it got roundly compared to the American ghetto, hip-hop biopic, 8 Miles. Did that bother her? "The two people I spoke to [to base the film on their lives] are living here. You can talk to them. So, no, I didn't get into it. It bothered me, when they compared Zindagi to Hangover [producer Ritesh Sidhwani had to respond to Warner Bros]. Now, I think that's what they do."

Inspirations from dogs and spirits apart, what makes Zoya's filmmaking process special - given what we've managed to gauge so far - is she is capable of working backwards. Where she must know end, before she locks her script. Which isn't true for many filmmakers, who often arrive at the conclusion, as they navigate the story or characters' journeys: "I have to set a goal. That goal may change. But I when I set off, I have to know where I am taking the film. Otherwise I meander. I need a direction I am shooting at, you know!" The other thing is her complete clarity on the point she's trying to make - so much so that she can distill each film into a single line, which is different from a log-line that describes a plot: "Of course Gully Boy is about a Muslim kid from Dharavi, who expresses himself through rap. It is a rags-to-riches, coming-of-age story. You can pin it down in any log line. But at the core of it, the film is about class. Luck By Chance is really about self-esteem. Zindagi is about living, seizing the day. Dil Dhadakne Do is a film about projection - who we actually are, and what we tend to project. It is what lenses the film, creates the base".'

Manoj Bajpayee: Professional life, even now, doesn't bother me much

Vi segnalo l'intervista concessa da Manoj Bajpayee a Mayank Shekhar, pubblicata da Mid-Day il 7 marzo 2020. Il testo include il video dell'intervista integrale. Manoj Bajpayee: Professional life, even now, doesn't bother me much:

'In a way, the journey of Bombay cinema's transition into millennial cool, late-90s/early-2000s onwards - what with even 'indies' beginning to merge with Bollywood mainstream - starts from a street in Delhi. It's officially named Sudhir Bose Marg, where colleges of Delhi University's (DU) North Campus are lined up one after another, on either side. If you survey this street late '80s onwards, you'd find Manoj Bajpayee enrolled in Ramjas College, fresh off a train from Bihar. Bajpayee says he also used to perform in plays at the next-door Hindu College. (...) When not representing university in cricket, Vishal Bhardwaj (from Meerut) would score music for those plays. "Rekha, Vishal's girlfriend [later his wife], was learning classical music." To the right of Shishir Bose Marg is Khalsa College, where Saurabh Shukla graduated from. To the left is Hansraj College, where Shah Rukh Khan was reading economics. Few years later, Imtiaz Ali (from Jamshedpur) founded Hindu College's dramatic society. At about the same time as Anurag Kashyap (originally from Benares), who was at Hansraj. "Oh there are just way too many people [to name]," Bajpayee trails off. (...)

The point for most of these DU students - who later made the move to Mumbai and cinema - wasn't quite to crack their final exam in history (Bajpayee), or zoology (Kashyap). It was firstly to gain access to the thriving theatre scene in the Capital. This is where Bajpayee co-founded the theatre company, Act One. It had, among others, Imtiaz Ali, (...) Piyush Mishra: "Shoojit Sircar used to design background music, and assist director. (...) Anubhav Sinha assisted [in direction], and was an important part of the circle." During the day Bajpayee trained under Barry John and his company Theatre Action Group (TAG), to secure a place in Delhi's National School of Drama - that ultimately rejected him four years in a row. It's at TAG that he first met Shah Rukh Khan: "No matter how talented we were, girls always flocked to Shah Rukh." Nothing's changed. "Shah Rukh (...) [era un] English theatre actor, (...) from privileged backgrounds in South Delhi," Bajpayee recalls. While everyone really made it on their own in Mumbai/Bollywood, with zero family connections, the one to scale the steepest climb is still likely to be Bajpayee. He was born into a farmer's family, with six siblings, raised in a village called Belwa in Bihar, bordering Nepal, where there wasn't even a local cinema, growing up. 

Besides, being Bihari meant a strong regional accent that he had to shed, in order to ready himself for multiple parts on stage/film: "If you're an actor, you can't be 'one type' in your real life - a Bihari, for instance. You should be able to play a Marathi, Punjabi... For many years, from my Hindi, many people couldn't figure out where I was from." What he worked on harder still is English. Which is just a language, yes, but it also denotes social access in India: "I always knew English is a tool to compete in this country; to fit in, and get your work done - even if I decide to work in the Hindi film industry. I didn't take it as a burden." It was quite common for Bihari students (nicknamed 'Harries') to land up in DU, to pursue courses in sciences and liberal arts, and take a shot at several entrance exams later - chiefly for the civil services. Bajpayee made sure he spent significantly more time with the few foreign students in his college, rather than the 'Harry gang': "The Kenyan/Nigerian guys would listen to my English, quietly, without judgment. Five hours of my day spent with them meant only speaking English, flat-out - gaining command/confidence over the language. Barry John, who took me under his wing, started giving me roles in English plays as well."

This interview is wholly in English. He's as fluent as it gets. This, he says, surprises his former flat-mates - a full-on 'English medium type' in particular, who'd make fun of him back in college. By the early '90s, having spent enough hours perfecting his diction, reading literature, watching plays, doing street theatre, exposing himself to arts and [alternate] cinema, what he calls the "best days of my life", Bajpayee began to 'belong' - to Delhi's intensely active stage scene. (...) This is the catchment area filmmaker Shekhar Kapur, along with his assistant and casting director Tigmanshu Dhulia, tapped into to cast for Bandit Queen (1994). Post its commercial success, the Bandit Queen 'alumni' pretty much migrated en masse to Mumbai. (...) "Seema Biswas got [the lead role with] Sanjay Leela Bhansali. (...) Saurabh Shukla in fact was the busiest..." And Bajpayee? Because his character Maan Singh in Bandit Queen didn't have many lines, despite strong screen presence, he remained relatively unnoticed. (...) What followed is four years of "no work, consequently no food," and life in a chawl. The primary talent he developed in these years, Bajpayee jokes, is an ability to time his entry into friends' homes - right at the moment when lunch was getting served; or a booze bottle was being cracked open! An important lesson that showbiz teaches most aspirants though, and something that Bajpayee appears to have imbibed as a personality trait, is the strength/perseverance to repeatedly face rejection, and calmly move on, before it breaks one's resolve/spirit. "I am basically dheeth [stubborn]," Bajpayee says more than once to describe himself. (...) 

The turning point in Bajpayee's career is obviously the iconic/immortalised 'Bhikhu Mhatre' from Ram Gopal Varma's Satya (1998). Varma, Bajpayee reckons, is the man who singularly altered the landscape of Lokhandwala, and indeed (mainstream) Hindi films. Varma was looking for writers for Satya. Bajpayee introduced him to Anurag Kashyap and Saurabh Shukla. Satya led to Varma's Kaun? (1999), also written by Kashyap, and a role that Bajpayee says he practically remodelled on the first day of shoot - turning Sameer Purnavale into a goofy bloke, rather than a serious fellow. Shool (1999), written by Kashyap as well, followed. Among Bajpayee's contributions to this lead part of a quiet cop, diametrically opposite to the boisterous Bhikhu, was the name Samar Pratap Singh. Samar was what Bajpayee wanted to officially change his own name to, but couldn't do paper-work for, before the release of Bandit Queen: "Everybody in Bihar is called Manoj." (...) Up until Chandraprakash Dwivedi's Pinjar (2003) that won Bajpayee his second National Award (first was for Satya), what you sense is an unlikely Bollywood star, on an enviable dream run, both at the box-office, and with critical acclaim. And then everything starts tumbling downhill thereafter - for seven frickin' years straight!

He had a fall-out with Varma, when the latter was at the top of his game: "I used to be angry, sensitive - not an easy person to deal with." Kashyap and he parted ways. He was going to both act in, and co-produce Kashyap's debut: "Anurag had mistakenly presumed that I wasn't interested in the role/film." He looks back at the fallow period, "Those weren't easy times. No work was coming [my way]. And whatever was, didn't match up to standards. Also, I was not keeping well." (...) Bajpayee's actual career graph effectively resembles a symmetrical ECG report, with extensive highs and lows, almost equally spaced out! He agrees, "I still call filmmakers for work, if I've enjoyed their recent film. The hardest part was to convince friends that I was still good enough. (...) When I reminisce [those times], I feel only I could've survived it. Because I don't take it to heart. The only thing that could break me is [upheaval on the] personal front. The professional life, even now, doesn't bother me much. Mumbai says it most beautifully, 'Yaar, load kyun leta hai [Why take stress?]'.

"TV crews that used to hound me started putting their cameras down, watching me enter events. I could hear the reporter, who wouldn't even lower his voice, instructing this to his crew. (...) And that happens with work. I was sure I was going to come back. But I needed a role. When I got Raajneeti, I knew this was it." (...) Raajneeti (2010), a major hit that Bajpayee, 51, admits resurrected his floundering résumé. (...) He earned matchless street-cred as Sardar Khan with Kashyap's masterpiece Gangs Of Wasseypur (2012). Kashyap and he are back to being friends. Of which he laughs, "Anurag is incredibly talented, but a loner. If you meet him for three days in a row, he starts hating you!" Further, his most challenging lead role in the current phase could well be as the Marathi, gay Professor Siras in Aligarh (2015): "A leading journalist had written about how actors' careers got ruined, once they played gay characters on screen. My career got made as a result." (...)

In 2019, Bajpayee stormed into mainstream web with Amazon Prime's smashing success, The Family Man, directed by Raj & DK, playing a spy Srikant Tiwari, who could be any other guy on a Mumbai street. As a basic brief, even that sounds a little lot like Bajpayee's breakout role in Satya: "Bhikhu Mhatre was the most real [gangster] that this country has ever seen on the big screen. He could be standing by a restaurant or a paan shop, and you wouldn't know he's a dreaded don. Which is true for people doing extraordinary things - they're extremely unassuming in day-to-day life. Srikant Tiwari has all the same elements, but we went a little further ahead in this realistic direction - he's even more casual, nervous, anxious [than Bhikhu]." If life/career must indeed be shaped into a circle, let's look at Bajpayee's last major film, Sonchiriya (2019) that (...) is set in the same time-frame and location (ravines of Chambal) as Bajpayee's debut, Bandit Queen. Like with his debut, Bajpayee appears as a quiet dacoit named Maan Singh. It's directed by Abhishek Chaubey (...) who, like his mentor (and Bajpayee's contemporary) Vishal Bhardwaj, went to Hindu College, from the same Sudhir Bose Marg in Delhi'.

Vicky Kaushal: 'When KJo's video was shared, I had no clue that I became the charsi'

Vi segnalo questa magnifica intervista (non integrale) concessa da Vicky Kaushal a Mayank Shekhar e pubblicata oggi da Mid-Day. Il pezzo include il link al video dell'intervista completa.  When KJo's video was shared, I had no clue that I became the charsi':

'How did you land Uri [given the unlikely CV]? (...)

I got a call from Ronnie Screwvala's office that they had dropped off an action script [to be directed by Aditya, who I already knew]. I saw the title, Uri: The Surgical Strike. And now I wasn't the actor. I was actually curious to know what happened [in Uri]. It took me four-and-a-half hours to read the script, in one go, which is what I prefer - as if I'm watching a film. That's when I get a true sense of what I feel.

As an audience?

Yes. So I started watching the film, and I just couldn't get it. There was just too much information, military-technical-logistical language. Also, I didn't feel anything. Because I hadn't taken four-and-a-half hours to read a script before. (...) My dad, who was equally curious about the Uri incident, and had read the script lying around, asked me what I thought of it. I said I'm not sure. He told me that if I miss this film, it'll be the biggest mistake of my life! He said that maybe I'm in a different space right now, in another kind of military film, and that's why unable to connect.

You were playing a Pak military officer, shooting for Raazi. Of course you're not going to like Uri!

[Laughs] And then I don't know what happened. I got back to the script four days later, finished it in an hour-and-a-half, as if I was reading it for the first time. I called up Sonia [Screwvala's associate] at 3 am, and said, I will do the film.

You essentially have your dad to thank for Uri. What I find most fascinating is actually your dad [Sham Kaushal]! Tell us his [lesser known] story.

My dad and mom are from a small village in Punjab. He was good in studies, and started learning English in sixth grade. He went on to top BA, in English Literature; did his MA. And wanted to be an English professor in Punjab. But the family's financial situation was such that he could not pursue an M.Phil from Chandigarh. At 23, he was frustrated, with no job, even after an MA degree. My dadaji [grandfather] had a very small kiraane ki dukaan [convenience store] in the village. My dad's friend Satpal was going to Bombay to become an actor. Since my dad was doing nothing at home, and frustrated, my grandfather asked him to tag along with the friend, for a few days, feel better, and come back. In Bombay, my dad wanted to start a new life. He had a distant uncle in New Bombay, who got him a salesman's job in a plumbing-wall shop, behind RK Studios, in Chembur. He did that for Rs 350 a month, and really struggled. He's been on streets. Without letting anybody know, he used to live in the office, having done a 'setting' with the peon. He would sleep, leave early; and come back, when work started.

He would take a shower in office?

Yeah, everything. After a year, he knew he couldn't start a family with R350 a month, even if he did the same thing for 15 to 30 years. So, without Plan B, he quits his job, and comes to a PG [paying-guest accommodation] in Santacruz. Here, he stays with 10 Punjabi guys, who're stuntmen. They leave for work in the morning, and come back with a tidy sum in the evening. That's when he discovers this [profession]. Purely for survival, he decides to become a stuntman, at 25. People start training at 13-15, when their body is flexible. He had never done any physical activity before. He used to sit in his father's shop, and do accounts. So he is a stuntman for 10 years. He lands up his first film as action director with Mohanlal, because the Malayalam filmmakers were shooting in Bombay. They needed someone to handle the stunt sequences. They would've been okay with an experienced stuntman as well. So long as the person understood English, so they could communicate with him. My father was the only guy around who knew English. He got that job because of his degree in English Literature! (...)

Did you get to observe showbiz closely as a result?

No. Well, my brother Sunny and I knew that the good things we were getting in life was because of a lot of dad's hardships, and my mom's support to him. But it was never a house, where we wanted to meet our favourite stars, go on sets, parties, etc. We had friends line up outside our house, for an autograph of an actor who was visiting. For us, that actor was my dad's friend. For example, Anurag [Kashyap] sir and I always have a laugh about this. He knows me since Black Friday [in which my dad was action director]. I was probably in my eighth grade. So when he used to come over for meetings, I used to call him uncle, serve him parathas, and go out to play cricket. So it was that. (...)

Did it bother you, as in a system where a star takes all, or that you would have to become one [in order to succeed]?

Not at all. To be honest, I don't know why, but I never had a sense [of entitlement] that I should be launched as a star. I knew I could make a mark by knowing my job - just going through the drill, and getting opportunities on the basis of what I know. Also, my father had made it clear that he would back my decision to be an actor, as a father alone. And not as an action director. So I had that reality-check - that nobody is going to spend crores, because I'm Sham Kaushal's son. And he's not going to do it either. Besides, for whatever reasons, whether some sort of complex, or plain under-confidence, my dream wasn't so big - that I want to be a hero. I was just on auto-pilot - that I'll give auditions, learn the craft through theatre, be an AD [assistant director]...

You did a lot of theatre?

I did. But I started off as an intern to Anurag Kashyap on Gangs Of Wasseypur. I also started reading scripts that my dad would get, to match with the final film, and see changes that an actor brought in. I could visit sets with him. But realised I'd then just be a visitor. My knowledge of engineering is so bookish that I can't even repair a TV. I wanted to be an engineer, who has been at the garage for four years. So I decided to dive into acting, with on-field learning. (...) Through actors on set, I got to know the importance of theatre. I'd been active on stage since school, but feared it professionally. I started doing theatre with Manav Kaul, Kumud Mishra, Naseer saab [Naseeruddin Shah], Thespo Festival, and Rage Productions - my first pay-cheque. I joined Kishore Namit Kapoor's acting academy. I also had to clean my slate, after being an assistant-director, because I wasn't looking at that profession. I completely cut off from Anurag sir.

But he made you act in Gangs, though!

It's the scene where Nagma Khatoon [Richa Chadha] goes to a brothel. Last minute, everyone [junior artistes] that we'd rounded up in Benares refused to participate in that scene, once they realised it's a brothel. The entire direction team stood-in for them. I'm that silhouette you see behind the window-grille, (...) when Nagma Khatoon is cursing Sardar Khan [Manoj Bajpayee]! That was the first time I faced a camera.

Oh, I'm told your first time before camera was for [director] Michael Winterbottom?

Yes, that was the first time I faced the camera, and you could see my face! Michael Winterbottom was making a film called Trishna, with Freida Pinto. We'd just finished shooting Gangs in March, 2011, and I had these braces, and was an AD. I had gone to my native place in Punjab with family, when I got a call from Anurag Kashyap, and he said, "Item number karega (Will you do an item number)?" I was like, what? He said, it's a Michael Winterbottom film, and Huma [Qureshi] and I will dance, and that he's acting in it as well, it'll be fun. So, Trishna, that's Freida's character in the film, comes to Bombay from Rajasthan, and a friend of hers takes her to a film-set. There's a song being shot with choreographer Ganesh Acharya, which is being picturised between and Huma and I [in the film, within the film]. (...) I was wearing this shimmery black, typically item-number costume, which I was very conscious of. I had no idea how it feels to be before a camera, with 50 back-up dancers, and 200 people around. So, my body is dancing, but my face is like this [frozen]. Ganesh Acharya sir, who was very sweet, came up to me and said, "You're dancing well. Now just dance from your face!" Of course, with several retakes, we got it right. (...)

Masaan was your first release. But Zubaan, which picked up top festival awards, was actually your first film. Honestly, couldn't understand that movie. Should one go back and watch it again?

I don't feel an audience should change the way they should watch a film. If you can't connect, you can't. It really resonated with me - a Punjabi from Gurdaspur, going to a big city, living that life, eventually realising it's not him; and now he has to connect back to his roots, and music becomes his medium. There was a lot for me to do as an actor - the journey, plus that stammering, plus music... If I feel connected to a material, for any reason, I just plunge into it. I don't think if it's going to do any good. I went through several rounds of auditions, from a short-list of around 200-300 actors, for that role.

Even Masaan, for that matter, I'm told, you'd seen the pilot promo of that film with other actors already. Who were the other people doing that film then?

I remember [director] Neeraj [Ghaywan] and I, with the entire AD team of Gangs of Wasseypur, were going to Pune. Because a friend had lost someone in her family. We were in the same car, catching up after long. He was telling me about a film he was trying to make. (...) He showed me the pilot-promo. It looked very interesting, and he gave me the gist. The cast was Rajkummar Rao for the part I [eventually] played. (...) There was Manoj Bajpayee for the part played by Sanjay Mishraji, and Richa [Chadha], and Shweta [Tripathi]. That was the promo. The film had to be shot in October during Durga Puja. (...) If they missed the deadline, they'd have to shoot the following year, which they couldn't afford. Raj couldn't make it during the time, so that slot became open. They were looking for new actors. So they auditioned me, and I passed!

That was a breakout role. You owe your career to Rajkummar Rao!

[Laughs] Yes. In fact, my first few films, even Zubaan or Raman Raghav [2015], had gone to somebody else, and then they started auditioning again. (...)

Speaking of directors, you've worked with Anurag Kashyap as an intern [Gangs], then actor [Raman Raghav, Manmarziyaan], he also produced Masaan. He's notorious for throwing actors into the deep-end, no script, etc. How did that work for you, starting off?

He's a very impromptu kind of a creative force, relying on impulse. If you give him everything ready on paper, then he might not know what to do on a set. He does give you the lines. He just doesn't want actors to be rigid, when it comes to them. So he wants you to enter knowing what your character is. And then allow him, the geography, and the costumes to mould you.

Give an example?

Sometimes, we may not have the lines beforehand. For example, my last scene in Manmarziyaan. It's the separation scene between Taapsee and I, in her room. We were ready in costume. He had told the DOP [cinematographer] to keep the tracking-shot ready. And he is with his pen and paper, writing the scene, while we're in costume. He gives us the lines, and we have five to ten minutes to prepare. I had to hug Taapsee. It is an emotional moment. My character has accepted the fact that he's not the guy in her life. He hugs her. And once a scene is over, as per the script, for the next ten to fifteen seconds, Anurag sir has a tendency to not say cut.

He will just keep the camera rolling?

Yeah, while the actors are thinking, what do I do next? I still remember, it was my OS [over-the-shoulder] shot. I have hugged Taapsee. The moment is done. And done. And done... But I still can't hear, cut! Then I see Anurag Kashyap sitting right next to that camera, looking at me, going, "Alag ho jaa, alag ho jaa [separate]." So in that emotional, teared-up state, I don't know what to do. She [Taapsee] doesn't know what to do either. And then, I just start beat boxing. That makes Taapsee smile. And that makes me smile. And then, he says cut. That is the moment, and the scene in the film. Not the one he had written.

Is Rajkumar Hirani the methodically prepared, polar-opposite?

He is as organic. The difference between them lies in the writing, and structuring of the film. And their ways of presenting a story. As directors, they are both fine editors. They can see the film while shooting it, and so they are super-fast - no safety-shots, no safety-cuts. I've seen on Sanju, Raju sir has called for a steady-cam operator on set for a specific shot and moment. It's a full night's shoot anyway. While shooting the scene, he captured that moment on a static camera. He was so sure that he had got the shot, that he just told the steady-cam operator to pack-up'.

Le prime del 9 maggio 2014: Mastram

Con l'eccezione del citatissimo Kanti Shah, poco o nulla trapela della produzione softcore indiana, sia cinematografica che editoriale. Ultimamente, però, l'argomento - piuttosto in voga negli anni ottanta - ha stuzzicato l'interesse di alcuni registi (v. The dirty picture e Miss Lovely). È ora la volta di Mastram, diretto dall'esordiente Akhilesh Jaiswal, già sceneggiatore di Gangs of Wasseypur. La pellicola è la biografia fittizia di Mastram, scrittore di culto di narrativa softcore in lingua hindi. In realtà pare che Mastram non sia mai esistito, o meglio, che dietro questo pseudonimo si celassero diversi autori sconosciuti. Trailer. 

Vi segnalo l'articolo The Mastram effect: Erotica comes of age in Indian cinema, di Urmimala Banerjee, pubblicato da Mid-Day il 2 marzo 2014:

'Out in the open Akhilesh Jaiswal (...) says, “Like many young North Indian men, I too grew up reading Mastram’s books. I used to wonder how this guy would be like and what would he be telling people about his profession. It was just a thought that later formed the base for my film. We did a lot of research but could not find any links to the ‘actual’ Mastram. Most of the old bookstalls that sold his stuff had shut shop or the owners had died, so I could not establish any contact.” Working on a film based on the life of a porn writer would not have appealed to many Bollywood heroes but Jaiswal says that the initial reaction wasn’t that negative either. “I did not approach any big star but 90 per cent of those I asked were kicked about the script. When Nawaz (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) heard it, he loved it and so did Rajkummar Rao. Unfortunately, they could not be a part of the film due to other commitments”.'

Le prime del 23 marzo 2012: Agent Vinod

Agent Vinod è l'attesissimo film d'azione diretto da Sriram Raghavan e interpretato da Saif Ali Khan e Kareena Kapoor. Pritam firma la colonna sonora. Fra i brani che la compongono, incuriosisce I'll do the talking tonight, rielaborazione della nota canzone Rasputin dei Boney M., per la quale la produzione di Agent Vinod ha regolarmente pagato i diritti. Kareena si offre in una coreografia di stampo classico in Dil Mera Muft Ka, mentre Saif sembra divertirsi un mondo nella visualizzazione di Pyaar Ki Pungi. Trailer.

Aggiornamento del 7 novembre 2019: vi segnalo l'intervista concessa da Saif Ali Khan a Mayank Shekhar, pubblicata oggi da Mid-Day. Saif Ali Khan: When my father died, Pataudi Palace got rented:

'[Referring to Sriram Raghavan's] Agent Vinod, that you wanted to make?

I made a mistake. I thought Jack Bauer from 24; so why not an Indian Agent Vinod? Apart from a complicated script, we missed out on the character's 'Indianness'. This guy was looking bit too western - dinner-jacket, suaveness. He should've been wearing chashma, holding a ball-pen...

Did you decide to shelve the film during its making?

No, again, Dinesh Vijan was [co-]producing. He is good at balancing stuff. What had happened was that we were shooting at a heritage site - action-sequence, with machine guns and all. We needed to blow up stuff. So we said, okay, there are a couple of beautiful, medieval temple structures...

No!

Of course not! We built replicas 100 yards away. The people there went nuts, suggesting that we were blowing up the complex. They stopped our shoot. We had to reschedule, scrap what we were doing, etc. But we managed'.