Avinash Lohana (MUMBAI MIRROR; July 25, 2015)

Sohaila Kapur, Dev Anand's niece, who was last seen in Govind Nihalani's 1991 National Award-winning film Rukmavati Ki Haveli will make her comeback in Sajid Nadiadwala's Phantom. Confirming this, she says, "Yes I'm playing a Pakistani widow whose teenage son has been kidnapped by terrorists and is being trained to become one. Her character is crucial to the climax."

The journalist-turned-actress will also be seen in Sudhir Mishra's Aur Devdas and an international film titled Dev Bhumi. "My job and responsibilities kept me away from films for so long. I was never an active part of the film industry; I produced, directed and wrote for theatre. But it's my dream to write a film script some day," she says.

She admits she misses her uncle Dev and is not in touch with her cousin Suniel even though they played together as kids. "We're both busy in our lives but our relationship is cordial," she asserts.

Buzz is, she is also writing a book on her illustrious family. "I'm working on it; it's a sensitive subject and I have to tread carefully," she signs off.

Gaurav Dubey (MID-DAY; February 19, 2015)

Richa Chadha, who is currently shooting for Sudhir Mishra’s Aur Devdas in Delhi, met with an accident on the sets recently. As part of a scene, she was required to ride a two-wheeler, but it ended in a big fall for her.

Says a source, “Richa does not have experience in riding a two-wheeler. But post a few practice sessions through the day, she was ready for the scene. As soon as the camera started rolling, she covered a little distance and skidded off the road creating a bit of a panic on the sets. She bruised herself badly and has sprained her leg as well.”

A unit hand adds that the little mishap led the makers to suspend the shoot for the day. “But she resumed shoot in a couple of days and will be in Delhi till the end of next week,” the source states.

Richa admitted to have hurt herself, saying: “I was riding the two-wheeler for the scene and the production car slowed down. To avoid hitting the camera, I applied the brakes and fell down. I hurt my foot and have sustained some deep bruises. I continued to shoot which worsened my injury.”

Sandesh Shandilya has composed and co-produced a world music symphony that will premiere in Cologne
Roshmilla Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; January 23, 2015)

For the last three years, Sandesh Shandilya who has composed the music for 27 Indian films, including Chameli and Jab We Met, has been missing in action. He had a release last year, Rang Rasiya, but he'd worked on that film five years ago.

Now, Mirror has learnt that Sandesh was working on a world music symphony, Search For Buddha, which will have its world premiere in Cologne, Germany, on February 7, followed by a show in Bielefeld the next day, and then a UK premiere in London. "We plan to have shows around the world, in India too," he says.

The composer admits that he always wanted to create music with a message of world peace. Buddha became the symbol after he took a course in Vipassana Meditation which put him in touch with his inner self through 10 days of silence. "I learnt that by conquering anger, lust, greed, fear and attachment, you can be at peace with yourself and bring peace to the world," he recalls.

Buddha's inner journey will be traversed by 60 musicians from Germany, Hungary, UK Japan, the Middle East, South Africa and India, 40 members of the WDR Funkhaus Orchestra and the WDR Radio Choir and five soloists, including Rhani Kriya, Strings' percussionist on the drums and Markus Stockhaousen, his co-producer, on the trumpet/flugelhorn. "During rehearsals I noticed that the music sounded western classical so I decided to draw musicians from all over," he says.

Sandesh has also arranged the music with Christopher Masand and will do some folk-singing. The symphony will be conducted by Wayne Marshall, but some day soon, like Zubin Mehta, Pandit Ravi Shankar, Illayaraja and Pyarelal, Sandesh would like to conduct too.

All the musicians have been gifted a CD of Rang Ransiya. "Marcus introduced me to the WDR Funkhaus Orchestra, they loved the symphony and when they quizzed on my previous work, I played Rang Rasiya for them which mesmerised them," he reminisces.

Will this new journey bring an end to his Bollywood tenure? "I'll do only two-three shows a month which means I'll be in India for 20 days," he asserts, saying he's working on iPad with Road to Sangam director Amit Roy, Satra Ko Shaadi for John Abraham, Time Out and Sudhir Mishra's Aur Devdas. "Aur this Devdas will have a contemporary score," he says.

Chaya Unnikrishnan (DNA; December 19, 2014)


You have been away from the scene for a long time...
Yes, I am back after eight years. I stopped acting because of the kind of films that were offered to people like me who were relatively new and had no guidance. I quit the profession in anger.

What stopped you from doing TV?
As I said I just stopped acting, so TV was also out of question. Instead, I decided to produce TV shows, but still didn’t act in them.

How did Ugly happen?
Anurag Kashyap and I know each other from the time we were strugglers. We used to stay in the same locality and he would say ‘you should be doing movies’. However, it was when he met me two years ago that he said he has a script for me. It was a challenging role and I immediately said yes. Sudhir Mishra saw me in the film and offered the title role in Aur Devdas. And I am back! At least for the next one year I am booked (smiles).

What made Ugly challenging?
It is a layered film. The basic story is about a girl who goes missing. However, the movie brings out several inter-personal relationships and how each of us is busy in our personal lives and selfish. To really bring out that emotion, I had to go deep into my inner self. I remember, for a scene that was shot in a Colaba’s Irani Cafe, I had to break down. Even after Anurag said ‘cut’, I couldn’t stop crying. Anurag tried to comfort me but in the end he also started weeping. The scene had really shaken us up. Besides, it was a demanding shoot. We shot on real locations in Mumbai. Both Anurag and I decided to leave the comfort our homes and stayed outside a hotel, exactly the way we lived during out struggling days. We had a terrible time revisiting those days.

Why did Anurag keep you away from the media glare during the filming?
(Laughs) That was because he had told me to go without sleep throughout the shoot. Trust me, I used to hardly sleep for two to two-and-a-half hours. Also, since I was shown to be a drunkard, I used to actually drink on the sets. I had a wired look, which was the requirement of the film.

Now that it’s releasing what are your expectations?
The film has been acclaimed at international film festivals. I was even nominated at the New York Film Festival. We’ve shot a kick-ass film. Now it’s up to the audience, who are always complaining about watching the run-of-the mill fare, to make this successful. We are offering them something different.

Tell us about Aur Devdas. This must be the fourth Devdas now...
Yes. But this is different from what you have seen so far. It is set against a political backdrop in Lucknow. I play the role of a rich guy, who just parties, is into drugs, generally a wastrel. He is from a political family and one day he goes back to his roots to claim his rightful place. Let me tell you, I did not drink to play the role of Devdas. I told Sudhir that since I had done a lot of drinking in Ugly I had enough experience to play a drunkard!

What next?
I have several interesting offers, but am yet to take a call.

Anurag Kashyap on how people perceive him, his upcoming film, censor battles and more
Srishti Dixit (DNA; December 18, 2014)


Ugly is releasing a week after PK. Any fears?
Why should there be insecurities? It’s a very well thought through thing. The primary reason, when we were trying to release Ugly was: Why should we spend more money on planning and analysis than we have spent on the film? It doesn’t make any sense. The industry is not going to change; everybody thinks that there is a certain way in which every film should be promoted. Secondly, why should we promote the film in a wrong way you know, just by using songs, or promising the wrong things. Also, during our discussion, we realised that you decide you want to watch a film by its first promotion, its first trailer, its first look. We do a lot of promotion to get people’s interest in it. Ugly is not a big star cast film, the only promotion is going to be for its content. The content of the film is such that till people don’t see it, there won’t be any word-of-mouth. So we just focussed on making people watch the trailer, see the poster and get intrigued. PK is a 6000-screen release, we are a 400-screen release. We just need four to six shows, they’ll have some 15 shows in every theatre. PK is like a big fish in the sea, all the small fishes cling on to it. We are the small fish.

How did the idea for Ugly germinate?
I’d started writing a story about kidnapping quite a while back but the head of STF in Lucknow, Amit Pathak, he helped me a lot with the actual cases and that helped with the script.

Did you have a specific star-cast in mind while writing the film?
Not the rest, but Rahul Bhat definitely was in mind...

Which is surprising given that he has been off the grid for quite some time...
He has been off the radar for a long time but he was in my head. In my struggling days, I used to see him often. I have seen his rise through Heena and then doing films and then disappearing, then he became a producer. So he was definitely in my mind.

Some call you a pioneer, some call you a sell-out because now you have ventured into commercial cinema. You were quoted saying, “I am not an NGO for indies.” So how do you tackle that kind of criticism?
I am indifferent to it. It is the nature of things. I did not want to start a movement. I wasn’t fighting for everybody’s cinema, I was fighting for my cinema. People turned that fight into everybody’s fight. Then I was made into a poster-boy, I never asked for it. People put you up, then they pull you down. Every poster-boy becomes a dartboard. One thing I take pride in is that I pick up good films. I picked up The Lunchbox. A lot of people make films for God knows what reason! Take responsibility, bring returns. Now anybody can make an independent film, but every film isn’t good. Zaroori nahi hai ki indie hai toh achhi hai. A film that makes sense to me will be supported by me. Many of my films get delayed because we don’t ask for a percentage of the money it makes. Yeh baat sabko pata hai ki ye aadmi free mein karta hai. But main yahi sab karta rahunga toh main kya karunga? I have suffered so much because of this, so much of my time gets consumed in getting a film released, that at one point I used to think ki main hi karta rahunga ye sab ya koi aur bhi karega?

But in Hindi commercial cinema, content isn’t king. Some films making profits are low on quality content...
If it is a Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Ajay Devgn or Hrithik Roshan film, people will go and watch it. In that case, the responsibility lies with the producer-director. A Rajkumar Hirani film will run successfully from the start till the end, because content is good. Aamir’s star aura is not as much as Shah Rukh and Salman, but he makes sure that the content is good, so his films run more. If a producer and director take responsibility for the content then the film will make no less than Rs 300-400 crore. But that never happens; they take it for granted ki stars hain toh log aayenge film dekhne. Now look at Queen’s opening. When it opened it made Rs 6 crore but over time, it made 10 times the opening business. With other films, the weekend is Rs 100 crore but by the end it hasn’t touched 200. Ugly won’t have a big opening and I know it. We’ll come after PK on December 26 so the first week of release will be our promotion week. After that the word-of-mouth will pick up and then the second week will be our actual release week. That’s how I’ve thought of it, but let’s see what happens.

You fought a long battle with the Censor Board over the ‘Smoking is injurious to health’ message in Ugly...
The case was deferred by High Court because a similar case is pending in Supreme Court.

In retrospect, do you think that you wasted your time fighting?
Definitely, time waste hua. We would have released the film earlier had we known that the issue would be stretched for so long and this would be the end of it. I wished they told us earlier about the SC case, we would have released Ugly earlier. I’ve decided to forget it because kisi ke paise lage hain aur ispe interest padh raha hai. So, better to release it now.

Do you think that the Censor Board is too touchy?
See, the Censor Board is not an autonomous body. It’s not the Board that is touchy, it is the people who are leading the Censors who are scared of controversies because they are scared of the Ministry. The bureaucrat sitting in the ministry is like ‘Boss, I am not going to the court and be answerable for something.’ And we have this old dinosaur sitting in the ministry. Till the time the Censor Board is not autonomous, things won’t change.

How do you plan on taking on the deep-seated hypocrisy?
We have to fight it. We have to call a spade a spade.

Do you get support from within the film fraternity?
There are people who actually pat your back and say, ‘Let’s do it’ but they don’t come together.

They don’t?
Coming together means vocally addressing an issue together, not lend ing support silently off-record.

But why is it so? If an issue like the ‘Smoking is injurious to heath’ message gets resolved, it will benefit everybody right?
Nobody cares. Someone who doesn’t care about his cinema wouldn’t care how many disclaimers are put on screen. If you really care about your film, if you really love what you do, then you will not allow anything to be put on that screen. The fact that they don’t come together and they allow for so many disclaimers on the screen shows how much they love their films.

About your next release Bombay Velvet, rumours have been doing rounds that Ranbir Kapoor is not happy with the film...
All these rumours have started from one trade magazine, Box Office India. That trade magazine co-produced a film with Fox Star Studios and unki aapas mein ladai chal rahi hai. It doesn’t matter what the rumour is.

When are you releasing the first look of Bombay Velvet?
That is not in my hands. That is for the studio to decide. I can tell you Ranbir loves the film, everybody loves the film; you ask them and they will tell you the same thing. There is a hell lot of excitement around the film and we cannot reveal what we are planning, we aren’t at liberty to say.

Reports suggested that you were playing the lead in a Sudhir Mishra film?
Ye news jahaan se aayi hai unhi se poochiye! I shot for Sudhir Mishra’s Aur Devdas precisely for one day; it is the film that he is shooting at the moment.

The actress walks out of debutant director Pia Sukanya's Indo-British venture at the last moment to do a Saif Ali Khan-starrer
Ankur Pathak (MUMBAI MIRROR; December 12, 2014)

Richa Chadha was to play the female lead in debutant director Pia Sukanya's Indo-British venture Bombairiya. The film, which costars Shraddha Kapoor's younger brother, Siddhanth and Pizza actor Akshay Oberoi, was to go on floors in December. The makers claim that they were in for a rude shock when the actress unceremoniously left the project for the Saif Ali Khan-Kangana Ranaut starrer, Mr. Chaalu, produced by Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar.

When contacted, a fuming Michael Ward, the film's British producer, said: "We made some adjustments in our film's schedule earlier after she told us she's working on a Sudhir Mishra film (Aur Devdas). We reworked the combination dates."

But they had to go through another round of adjustment after Richa informed them that she had a commitment with Pooja Bhatt who had 'blanket control' over her dates. "Initially the film was to go on floors in October. Despite the dates getting postponed twice, we were ready to start the shoot in early January, " says Ward. "Now, we're left in a lurch."

However, Richa has a different story. When contacted, the actor's manager said, "We've trying to get everything down on paper but the producers are yet to send us a signed contract. Had the dates been set, none of this drama would have happened. Richa is a thorough professional, all her producers will vouch for this."

Meanwhile, the film's makers are trying to find a last-minute replacement for the Gangs of Wasseypur actress. "We've been pushed around enough. A third rearrangement of schedule was the last straw. We will now begin shooting in April with another actress," Michael signed off.

MID-DAY (October 9, 2014)

Sudhir Mishra’s upcoming film, Aur Devdas, has gone on the floors but with a major change — Kajal Aggarwal, who had been signed on to play Chandramukhi’s character, has been replaced by Aditi Rao Hydari.

A source close to the project revealed that Sudhir Mishra had earlier finalised Kajal Aggarwal in the multi-starrer film. However, due to date issues, she had to opt out and that’s when Aditi stepped in. A source says, “Everything was finalised and Kajal was on board but she had some date problems and was in talks with the makers over certain other issues. However, things were set on the production side and the shooting was scheduled to start. A lot of actors are involved in the film and their dates were worked out accordingly. The shoot couldn’t have stopped for one person. Aditi was initially being considered for the role and so, she was finally cast.”

Mishra is credited for launching Aditi Rao Hydari in his film, Yeh Saali Zindagi. She will soon be seen in The Legend of Michael Mishra.

Meanwhile, Shruti Haasan was supposed to be a part of Puri Jagannadh’s upcoming Telugu film, tentatively titled Kummestha, which stars NT Rama Rao Jr. However, the latest buzz has it that she has been dropped from the project with Kajal Aggarwal replacing her. A source says, “Shruti was initially approached for the film and she agreed to do it as she liked the script. The process of signing on the dotted line and other formalities had been completed. But, we were recently told that she is no more a part of the film and Kajal Aggarwal has been brought on board.” It is being said that the Shruti was not allotting proper dates to the makers, which led to her being shown the door.

Reportedly, the actress was being considered for an item number in the film but sources suggest even that is not working out. “Shruti recently did an item number, which went on to become quite popular. That is why the makers were planning to cast her in the item song. However, for that too, she could not devote time and finally, they went ahead with newcomer Nora Fatehi.”

Puri Jagannadh quashed the buzz about having initially approached Shruti for his film. “It is not true. Shruti was never a part of my film,” he said.

Shruti, on the other hand, remained unavailable for comment on the buzz.

Ankur Pathak (MUMBAI MIRROR; September 3, 2014)

Subhash K Jha (DNA; September 2, 2014)


Shooting began in Lucknow (where the film will be shot in its entirety) and the schedule is expected to last for three months.

The film, which has been talked about for years now, reportedly had names like Lara Dutta and Chitrangada Singh associated with it. Last heard, Kajal Aggarwal was on board. Prior commitments in Tollywood were cited as a reason for the Singham actress to opt out of the project. Her exit paved the way for Aditi to take over as Chandramukhi. A source close to the project maintains, “Richa fits the bill as far as the requirements for Paro went — he wanted someone fiery, yet dignified. And having worked with Aditi in Yeh Saali ZIndagi, Sudhir was aware that she is a trained Indian classical dancer and would be perfect as his Chandramukhi. Also, he had a particular personality and look in mind for both roles.”

For the role of the modern-day Devdas, however, Bhatt was Sudhir’s first and only choice after being ‘blown away’ by his performance in Anurag Kashyap’s Ugly, says the source.

In a recent interview, Sudhir admitted that the film, “a political thriller with very strong romantic angles to it” was his “tribute to Devdas” but added that it owed as much to the “influence of William Shakespeare” on him maintaining that it was “certainly not a remake of classic Devdas”.

Vickey Lalwani (MUMBAI MIRROR; August 27, 2014)

Singham girl Kajal Aggarwal will return to Bollywood, a year after Special Chabbis, as Chandramukhi. After a long search, director Sudhir Mishra has finally zeroed down on the Southern star to essay the lovelorn courtesan in his adaptation of Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's Bengali novel Devdas, reportedly titled Aur Devdas. Earlier, it was speculated that Aditi Rao Hydari was going to play the role. Now, with Kajal on board, Sudhir is ready to put the films on floors next month.

Richa Chadha will essay the role of Parvati aka Paro while Rahul Bhat who plays the lead in Anurag Kashyap's Ugly is the modern-day Devdas.

Rahul says he's looking forward to working with Richa and Kajal.  "I know them socially. If Sudhir has chosen them to play such pivotal roles, it goes without saying that they are talented," he points out, adding: "The film is a modern version of Devdas so I don't have to grow my hair."

Priya Gupta (BOMBAY TIMES; August 23, 2014)

Priya Gupta (BOMBAY TIMES; August 20, 2014)