Farhan Akhtar and Priyanka Chopra play parents to Zaira Wasim (top, right), whose protagonist is based on Aisha Chaudhary (top left)
Farhan Akhtar and Priyanka Chopra play parents to Zaira Wasim (top, right), whose protagonist is based on Aisha Chaudhary (top left)

Farhan Akhtar to join the team for the first of many workshops next week
Avinash Lohana (MUMBAI MIRROR; July 10, 2018)

Mirror (March 27) had earlier reported that Zaira Wasim will play the protagonist in Shonali Bose’s next directorial, The Sky Is Pink. Priyanka Chopra and Farhan Akhtar play her parents. PeeCee who air-dashed to Mumbai last Friday, after spending the Fourth of July holiday with beau Nick Jonas, was at work on Monday.

She joined Shonali and Zaira for the first of the workshops. Farhan who has been pedalling through Europe, filming a music video for his first Hindi single, is currently in London on the last leg of his travels. He will join the trio next week. PeeCee had on Sunday revealed the film’s title for which National Award-winning writer Juhi Chaturvedi has written the Hindi dialogues.

The film tells the story of Aisha Chaudhary, a motivational speaker with the book My Little Epiphanies to her name, who was born with an immune deficiency disorder and at 13 was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis. Despite her ailments, the youngster faced life head-on, inspiring many with her life-affirming talks. She passed away on January 24, 2015, at the age of 18.

According to a source close to the development, since it’s a true-life story, the workshop will be concentrating on character building and script-reading sessions. “The prep will go on for a while after which they will lock on the shooting date depending on the actors’ schedules. Mostly it will begin before Priyanka starts shooting for the Salman Khan period drama, Bharat. The actors are really excited,” adds the source.

Pritam will be giving the music for the Ronnie Screwvala and Siddharth Roy Kapur production. Shonali has already started locking shoot locations. “This is an absolutely true story and very close to my heart. I’m having a mind blowing time workshopping with my incredible cast,” she says from the workshop.