Posts tagged Yash Chopra

I still get angry even today-Sunny Deol

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4 days ago
by Fenil Seta in

Sunny Deol turns contemplative ahead of his next film

Mehul S Thakkar (MUMBAI MIRROR; May 15, 2013)

 

Sunny Deol is a busy man, what with Yamla Pagla Deewana 2 inching close to release. We caught up with the actor-filmmaker in between meetings at his office in Sunny Villa. The otherwise reticent Sunny appeared to be in a candid mood and didn’t hesitate to answer our questions. Excerpts from the interview…

The way you function has changed over the years… (Smiles) Today, it’s important to promote your film; it’s now part of the filmmaking process…

What about your temperament? Back then, I used to get irritated with filmmakers and crib about the things we didn’t get right. I was both loved and hated for being upfront. But I was just being myself. Today, when I watch my movies online, I feel they are looking nice in totality. At that time though, I never felt so. However, I still get angry even today (laughs)…

Why has there been no connect between you and actors who came after you like Aamir Khan, Akshay Kumar, Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan? I am happy with my family and my colleagues and want to continue making my own kind of cinema. I have never belonged to any camp and have no friends in the industry. Most of them will pay lip service but when it comes to doing, they tend to shy away.

Reportedly, there was trouble during the making of Darr but now, YRF has bought the audio rights of your film. Looks like times are changing… (Serious) Things change over a period of time. More >

Kucch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai changed my life-Anupam Kher

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5 days ago
by Fenil Seta in

Mehul S Thakkar (MUMBAI MIRROR; May 14, 2013)

 

This week, Anupam Kher’s one-man autobiographical play, Kucch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai, completes a landmark 300 episodes; a record no other actor has achieved. Speaking to Mirror in between rehearsals, Anupam says, “It’s a very humbling feeling,” adding he sometimes feels delirious to be able to entertain people through theatre, that too a play based on his life. Although he is quick to point out that the audience has grown from a mere 100 to nearly 5,000.

In 2005, Anupam was going through a rough patch when he thought of doing the play. Around the same time, he used to read a lot of autobiographies and what really interested him were people’s failures as compared to their successes. “I wanted to earn money and that is why I started this play. It has given me so much. Even my 26 years and 479 films in the film industry don’t look as impressive,” he recalls.

Initially, Anupam was afraid that people wouldn’t accept his play, more so because of its title. However, the number of shows staged around the world speaks volumes for its content. “The play has changed my life. It doesn’t deal with my triumphs, it deals with my failures. When you talk about your failures to the public, you have nothing to fear about. I wrote to the Guinness Book team about the achievement and they replied saying they have no way to validate this from all across the globe,” says Anupam about his play. The first show remains etched in the actor’s memory. More >

Gift from heaven: Yash Chopra ensures Adnan Sami’s Indian citizenship

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1 week ago
by Fenil Seta in

Subhash K Jha (DNA; May 10, 2013)

 

Thanks to the late Yash Chopra’s considerate intervention, Adnan Sami is all set to finally get his Indian citizenship. Not too many people know this but the late filmamker was Adnan’s guarantor for his Indian passport. Says Adnan emotionally, “Yash uncle and Pam aunty were the first family I had in Mumbai. They made sure I never felt like an outsider. Thanks to Yash uncle, I began to feel like a part of Bollywood and Mumbai in no time at all.”

While sharing such close bonds with the Chopra family, Adnan naturally turned to the Chopra patriarch for help to get his Indian citizenship.

Says Adnan, “Before he passed away, Yash uncle made sure all the paperwork for my Indian passport was done. Thanks to him, I am likely to get it.” Adnan refuses to believe that current tensions between India and Pakistan would affect efforts to bring the two countries together on a cultural level. “I’ve never felt any hostility. India is as much my country as anyone else’s. You can’t write off 70 years of a relationship just because there are some stormy moments in the journey,” says Adnan who has sung a song for the Pakistani composers Meet Brothers in Sanjay Gupta’s Shootout At Wadala.

Pamela Chopra sings Veer-Zaara song at film fest in Melbourne

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1 week ago
by Fenil Seta in

Asira Tarannum (MID-DAY; May 7, 2013)

 

At the opening night of the Indian Film Festival in Melbourne, Pamela Chopra sang a track of Veer Zaara on request from one of the guests.

Says a source, “Pamela Chopra was sitting with Farah Khan, Simi Garewal, Vidya Balan and others. One of the guests in the audience requested her to sing a few lines from the song. The late Yash Chopra’s wife obliged the guest and sang a few lines.”

The audience gave a standing ovation to Pamela soon after.

100 years of Indian Cinema: Mahesh Bhatt on 18 great filmmakers

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2 weeks ago
by Fenil Seta in

BOMBAY TIMES (May 4, 2013)

 

In 1951, the Hollywood Moghul David Selznick was strolling through an empty, ghostly movie studio when he was struck by an uncomfortable thought. The maker of such giant classics like Gone With The Wind was in heavy debt. Television was beginning to be a threat to the movie business. Pointing to the empty stages, he said to his writer friend Ben Hecht ‘Hollywood is like Egypt… full of crumbled pyramids. It will just keep crumbling until finally the wind blows the last studio props across the sands.’

Thankfully, Selznick’s prophecy did not come true. The global movie business today is a multi-billion dollar industry. No wonder then that India, the film family’s most hyperactive child, is celebrating its 100th birthday party this year.

If I was given the chance to invite filmmakers for this bash, who would be on my list? Undoubtedly, the first person would be Dhundiraj Govind Phalke (Dadasaheb Phalke), who is the Brahma of Indian Cinema and whose 40-minute film Raja Harishchandra set the cinematic ball rolling in India. It was this brave son of India who understood that it is mythology that motivates cultures, not reason, race, or ideology. Next to him would sit Satyajit Ray, the only genuine auteur Indian cinema has ever had. Ray not only wrote his scripts and dialogues and songs, but also designed the sets, costumes, posters, operated the camera, edited the film and composed the music. He is the only Indian who has got a lifetime award at the More >

Sidharth-Parineeti’s Hasee Toh Phasee inspired from Aaina?

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2 weeks ago
by Fenil Seta in

Kunal M Shah (MID-DAY; April 30, 2013)

 

Karan Johar and Anurag Kashyap’s upcoming romantic triangle film — starring Sidharth Malhotra, Parineeti Chopra and Adah Sharma — seems to be loosely based on the Yash Chopra produced and Deepak Sareen directed Aaina (1993). Parineeti essays Juhi Chawla’s role and Adah plays Amrita Singh while Sidharth Malhotra plays the role of Jackie Shroff.

A source says, “Sidharth is currently shooting for it at Film City. The entire film will be set and shot in Mumbai. Sidharth, a Johar protégé will be playing the protagonist in the film. His role is written such that it will highlight his strong points. The story deals with Adah Sharma and Sidharth playing a couple who have been in love for over eight years and than Adah’s younger sister Parineeti comes in and Sidharth falls in love with her which incidentally was also the premise of Aaina.” The source furthers adds, “Sidharth’s name in the film will be Nikhil Bharadwaj. He plays a Punjabi boy from Delhi, a middle- class boy who loves his parents and always wants to see everyone happy. Sidharth wants reach the top and is very competitive. So that he gets well into character he has asked everyone on set to call him Nikhil. He behaves as his character would all day on set. He is putting in a lot of hard work to prove that he has the talent to get him to the top.”

Vikas Behl of Phantom who is co-producing the film with KJo did not revert to our SMS.

My arrogance comes from my being a self made man-Anupam Kher

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2 months ago
by Fenil Seta in

Priya Gupta (BOMBAY TIMES; February 21, 2013)

 

Anupam Kher, 57, has acted in 461 films, has worked with the maximum number of first-time directors, is the only Indian to have worked with Robert De Niro, runs a successful acting institute and is the proud author of a motivational bestseller. In spite of losing all his money and his health a decade ago, he bounced back with the knowledge of his craft and the strength of his father. With critical acclaim for his film Special 26 and being a part of the Oscar-nominated film Silver Linings Playbook, he talks to Bombay Times about losing the four pillars of his life last year, his disappointment with Dibakar Banerjee and why he believes Ranbir Kapoor is one of the finest actors India has produced. Excerpts:

You went through a difficult period in your life a decade ago. What went wrong? In 1999, I was at the peak of my career and was working with every filmmaker in the country when, unknowingly aping Mr Bachchan, I decided to become this TV tycoon and invested all my money plus borrowed money to make TV serials. I came up with a quiz show, Sawal Dus Crore Ka too. My partner Vikas Kasliwal, for his own reasons, backed out as he was not keen to get into TV and so I had to produce alone. I was bankrupt and had nothing left except my house. During that time, I remember once when I was having breakfast at Anil Kapoor’s house, his wife Sunita said I was not blinking from one eye and I was diagnosed with facial paralysis. I was advised More >

Romance in Bollywood: From flowers camaflouging kiss to instant ishq wala love

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3 months ago
by Fenil Seta in

Subhash K Jha (MID-DAY; February 14, 2013)

 

From two flowers coming together to camouflage a kiss, to sexually explicit scenes and dialogue, celluloid mirrors quick-fix love and push button passion in a world, which has little time for romance.

n 1970, Asha Parekh starred as a (pretend) widow in Kati Patang and Rajesh Khanna was her silent lover. There was not a single touch or caress between the two. Distributors were aghast, ‘How can we have the biggest romantic star of all time not even embracing his heroine once? Audiences would boo the film out of theatres,’ they said. But director Shakti Samanta stuck to his guns. No way. The widow wouldn’t cuddle up to the lover boy, come what may. Jump to 2000. Girls in movies like Ragini MMS look straight at the guy and ask, “Have you come yet?”

Says Asha Parekh, “It’s all too blatant and upfront in today’s films. When I did Kati Patang with Rajesh Khanna there was Anand Bakshi’s poetry to express love between the couple. In the very romantic Yeh shaam mastani Rajesh Khanna didn’t even brush his hand against me. But the intense feelings came through. Those were times of forbidden love. Parents monitored relationships. Today, which 20-something girl or boy would listen to the parents if they forbade a marital alliance? Forget marriage, we now have live-in relationships. And that too we get to see in our films.”

Like we see in Pyaar Ka Punchnama. Parekh feels cinema is only a reflection of reality. “Today, we have songs devoid of More >

Shatrughan Sinha on Rani Chopra faux pas: ‘I only stated the truth’

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3 months ago
by Fenil Seta in

Subhash K Jha (DNA; February 13, 2013)

 

The irrepressible Shatrughan Sinha is unfazed by the brouhaha he created by calling Rani Mukerji, ‘Rani Chopra’ at the unveiling of Yash Chopra’s statue at the Yashraj Studios on Monday.

While television channels went berserk with what they saw as Sinha’s faux pas, Shotgun makes it clear that the Chopra surname that he used with Rani’s name was no mistake. He is not regretful about the public revelation.

He told this paper, “I only stated the truth. Either you should not ask me to speak in public. If you do, you better be prepared for some frankspeak. I was asked to speak on the great Yash Chopra. While I was mentioning the family members my wife reminded me that I had forgot to mention Aditya Chopra. To this I replied, ‘I have mentioned Rani Chopra and that is as good as mentioning Aditya Chopra too.’ I see no harm in this. I didn’t think it would become such an issue.”

Yash Chopra’s statue to be unveiled at Walk Of Stars

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3 months ago
by Fenil Seta in

Mehul S Thakkar (MUMBAI MIRROR; February 6, 2013)

 

In an event to be held early next week, wife of late Yash Chopra, Pamela Chopra and Amitabh Bachchan will unveil a statue of the late filmmaker Yash Chopra at the Bandstand Walk of Stars.

The statue would be erected to pay tribute to the filmmaker,who gave his audience timeless classics like Silsila, Kabhie Kabhie and more recently Jab Tak Hai Jaan and is known as the “King of Bollywood Romance.”

Late Yash Chopra will join the likes of Raj Kapoor and Dev Anand on the Bandstand Promenade.

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