Vidya Balan to make Tamil debut with ‘Pink’ remake
Chennai– Actress Vidya Balan, last seen on screen in Telugu film “NTR Kathanayakudu”, will be making her Tamil debut via upcoming yet-untitled Tamil remake of Amitabh Bachchan and Taapsee Pannu starrer “Pink”.
The film’s producer Boney Kapoor, who is foraying into southern filmdom with this project, said in a statement.
Vidya has been paired opposite Ajith Kumar in the remake being directed by H. Vinoth. The shoot is underway in Hyderabad.
“Happy to introduce Vidya Balan to Tamil audiences. She is paired with Ajith and her role is very special. Shraddha Srinath has also been roped in for a pivotal role. Rangaraj Pandey plays a very important character,” Kapoor said in the statement.
The film also stars Adhik Ravichandran, Arjun Chidambaram, Abhirami Venkatachalam, Andrea Tariang, Aswin Rao and Sujith Shankar among others.
Apparently, it was late Sridevi’s wish that Ajith does a film in her husband’s production.
“While working with Ajith in ‘English Vinglish’, Sridevi had expressed her desire that Ajith does a Tamil film for our home production. Nothing exciting came up till one day last year.
“Ajith suggested remaking ‘Pink’ in Tamil. She immediately agreed as she thought it was most appropriate and timely film to make and Ajith would bring all the elements required to make it into a great Tamil film,” Kapoor had previously said.
Anil Kapoor an explosion of positive energy: Ranju Varghese
Mumbai– Choreographer Ranju Varghese says actor Anil Kapoor, with whom he worked on the forthcoming film “Total Dhamaal”, is an explosion of positive energy and happiness.
Varghese choreographed actors like Ajay Devgn, Anil, Madhuri Dixit Nene, Riteish Deshmukh, Javed Jaffrey and Arshad Warsi for the song “Paisa yeh paisa” from “Total Dhamaal”.
“He is an explosion of positive energy and happiness. His energy and vibe are infectious. His passion in his performance in each take was as if it was his first film. He saw to it that he was well rehearsed before the shoot,” Varghese said in a statement.
“My team used to be super excited about him coming for the rehearsal because we all knew that it was going to be a fun session with his one liners and his contagious smile,” he added.
He also found Ajay’s personality “warm and welcoming”.
“He claims to be a non-dancer, but he would surprise you how he memorises moves without any prior rehearsal and performs the same with no mistake in every take,” said the choreographer.
Not many films offered to women who are not from starry background: Aahana Kumra
New Delhi– Actress Aahana Kumra is happy with the work she has done and says there aren’t too many films that get offered to women who are not from a starry background.
Aahana rose to fame with her performance in “Lipstick Under My Burkha” in 2017 and then was seen as Congress President Rahul Gandhi’s sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in “The Accidental Prime Minister”.
Does she consciously choose content-driven cinema?
“No. I have not consciously chosen that. These are the films that are coming to me so, I think they have chosen me. It’s like my fate that these films are coming to me. I am taking the part that are coming to me happily because there arent too many films that get offered specially to women who are not from the star background,” Aahana told IANS on the phone from Mumbai.
She added that the roles that are offered to women are not meaty.
“The kind of roles that come to women in Hindi films are different they are not usually very performance oriented and I am glad that some performance oriented work is coming my way because one job is going to lead to another,” she said.
I was very nerdy: Sara Ali Khan
Singapore– Actress Sara Ali Khan, who is currently riding high on the success of her latest release “Simmba”, says acting has always been a dream for her, but then she got distracted because she was very “nerdy”.
Was performing in front of the camera her first career choice?
“When I finished the tenth grade, I was almost convinced that I wanted to do medicine. But the thing is that I have a mild tremor problem and I realised that I can’t do surgery. So, I decided to do law and I studied History and Political Science. But then in my last year, I did an acting course,” Sara said at a Leadership Lecture Series of Global Indian International School here on Sunday.
The 25-year-old actress said she was always studious.
Describing herself, she said she is “somebody that till date loves reading and has studied almost every subject and has thoroughly enjoyed it in a university like Columbia and a city like New York”. But the rush that she felt while doing theatre on stage, she says she had never felt like that.
“That’s when I knew what I knew since I was a child.”
I’d love to judge a reality TV show: Divya Dutta
New Delhi– Actress Divya Dutta, who has been balancing a mix of work in feature films, short films and the web entertainment space, says she would love to judge a reality show on the small screen if given a chance.
“I don’t think I will be doing too much of TV,” Divya told IANS and quickly added; “One should never say no”.
“But having said that, I am doing a lot of stuff on other platforms. I am doing web shows now and short films… What I really want to do actually is probably judge a reality show. I think it will be fun… watch talented people perform, pass a few nice comments, enjoy myself and come back.”
What kind of a show would she like to judge?
“Something fun… It could be dance, music or comedy. I think I’d love to judge a show, it’s something I have not done,” added the versatile actress.
During a recent visit to a music jam session, Divya said she was amazed to see how talented people are. (IANS)
