WONDER WOMAN 1984 will open in India later today and although the film has not done wherever it has been released so far the hope is that it takes the box office in India a notch higher in these pandemic times. The film has an extended weekend though the previews starting post 5 pm today (Wednesday) will be hit by night curfew in Maharashtra which means shows have to be wrapped up by 10 pm. This will lead to only one show on most of the screens and hence will have very limited business in Maharashtra for paid previews.

The first target is to be better the numbers of TENET which has been the best performer since cinemas opened in October. The advance is better than TENET but its also a near five day holiday weekend while TENET was a normal three day weekend. Also, majority of the business is coming in advance at present and the on-the-day audience is actually less or at least that was the case when TENET releases. Hopefully the figures on Thursday for WONDER WOMAN 1984 are higher than what TENET did on day one (1.15 crore nett).

WONDER WOMAN in 2017 did 2.20 crore nett on day one in English only and though technically WONDER WOMAN 1984 should beat this number as its been dubbed and a far wider release, but the flip side is the pandemic to consider. Also there will be a pirated HD print available online from the 25th December as it releases on HBO Max in USA. Still if the on-the-day audience is in significant higher numbers than TENET, then maybe the opening day numbers of WONDER WOMAN (2017) can be challenged on Friday and that will mean an improving box office in India.

Hollywood star, Netflix sensation Robin Wright on life with, and after, House Of Cards
Mayank Shekhar (MID-DAY; November 18, 2018)

"Petrified," isn't an emotion you'd instantly associate with Robin Wright, especially given her steely-cold exterior as Claire Underwood (nee Hale) on the Netflix flagship show, House Of Cards (HoC). But that's really how she felt as she called up executive producer, auteur David Fincher, night before a shoot, towards the end of the series.

Why's that? Over the show's six seasons, while Hale had transitioned from being Congressman Frank Underwood's wife, Vice President, First Lady, to the President of the United States; personally, Wright herself, besides earning unprecedented global fame and a Golden Globe for Clare's part, was turning director with HoC's finale episode.

Unknown to most, directing the dark, moody, relatively quiet HoC is a lot like gently tip-toeing around a delicate house of cards itself. For, rules on what you can, and cannot do on the show - no steady-cams, for instance, no hand-held cameras, no tight close-ups, only a specified set of lenses allowed, no use of the (bright) colour red-had been set in stone, by Fincher, when HoC began in 2012, under his direction.

"David is so smart about not conforming to a convention. Would it look like West Wing (a relatively optimistic show; also set in the White House) with lots of movement, pace, activity? He, in fact, created a new portraiture for chaos," Wright says.

Before she stepped into the director's shoes, while still in Claire's high-heels, Fincher told her just one thing: "For every scene, create a (mathematical) fraction (in your head): Behaviour/Time. With everything you look at in the frame, no matter how wide you are; ask yourself: What's the behaviour going on in the room. You can stay in that (pre-determined) wide shot for three solid minutes, if you've got ample 'behaviour' going on. If not, cut out quicker, go somewhere else."

With her last shot for HoC therefore, Wright, 52, didn't just finally move on from Claire, but also moved into filmmaking as a new profession. This is something she appears most keen to talk about, as we meet along with a group of international journalists, on the sidelines of a Netflix slate-event in Singapore.

She starts shooting her maiden feature film as director next winter, the story of which she's uncannily generous enough to share: "It's about a woman who loses her husband and child from a terrorist bombing. Dealing with grief, she goes out into the wilderness, to live in the wilds alone. She feels that she can't re-enter society, or be good for it, being the person she has become. Then she meets an (American) Indian man, who's also suffered tremendous amounts of loss. He teaches her how to live, and love life again."

That's poetic, alright - quite in contrast to psychopathic tendencies of American realpolitik (or politics in general), beneath polite pretentions, that HoC stood for. Rather stood out for: Its uniquely chilling insight into betrayals, lies, deceit that goes on in the White House, or among those desperately wanting to get in. Where, to quote Gore Vidal from the show's fifth season, "Power is an end in itself; and the instinctive urge to prevail, the single most important human trait."

I've used this story before, Wright says, but it's very telling still: "When House of Cards came out, we went to the Democratic National Convention Dinner that year. The actors sat at different tables, with different politicians. Each table was an eclectic group. I was next to a Southern senator. And he went, 'God, I just loved the show. It's so real, so accurate.' So I asked, How accurate? And he said, '99 per cent!' What's the one per cent that's not accurate, I asked. I thought he was going to say, people don't really murder, kill… He said, 'You'll never be able to pass the Education Bill that fast!'"

At this point, of course, one doesn't know whether to laugh, or barf. We laugh. Since it would take at least a year to film the ideas the writers came up with, Wrights recalls, "Sometimes we would shoot a scene, and then that would happen in reality. We would then extract that scene, and reshoot it with another event." The current (Trump) administration though, she exclaims, "Literally stole all our good ideas: Nothing's gonna top that shit!"

The writing process for HoC essentially involved hired advisers in Washington DC to gauge/predict what the repercussion of a particular event/situation on the show could be on Capitol Hill - was it to really happen. This would influence the final scene. Wright adds, "I would then come in, and say, hey, Claire as a character, would only say one of those four lines - she's a man, or woman, of few words. That sort of alteration would help. But that was the easy part." And the hardest part of playing Claire Underwood? "Having to sit up straight, everyday. And I'm not kidding!"

The incessant drama of HoC eventually rubbed off on the show, when in November last year, its lead actor Kevin Spacey (Claire's husband, Frank Underwood) was sacked from the series, following charges of sexual misconduct. Waiting for dust to settle, the show's top management regrouped after Christmas. That they chose to go ahead with HoC, nonetheless, Wright says, were because of two-fold reasons: "One was [to get at] what would be best for the show, its fans, and the five years we put into it. We finished the fifth season with Claire breaking the fourth wall to say, 'This is my turn.' Let's explore that, we thought, as we always intended to.

The other reason was the show's cancellation would've put over a thousand people in the state of Maryland out of employment [that was guaranteed to them for the time]."

Either way, that the final season suffers as a result of Frank being no more, but very much omnipresent in every episode, certainly makes the end of the Underwoods a rather underwhelming experience. It could well be because the graph of the season, at the time of Spacey's exit, must've already been scripted; leaving the writers, producers too little time to start from scratch.

This is still to take away nothing from Wright, as the eerily elegant, President Claire Hale, a life-changing part, she obviously remains grateful for: "To be able to play that fierce character opened doors for me, and why I got Blade Runner 2049, Wonder Woman. I'd been typecast for so many years - being the quiet, pained, understanding wife." I'm thinking her role as Forrest Gump's girlfriend (1994) must have set off that stereotype.

She describes the original intent behind Claire as "being the best of both sexes: a leader in a female body, who is also a man. She simultaneously operates the way a man, and a woman does, within an environment of a very Shakespearean drama." Despite a bit of a hint-hint, wink-wink cliffhanger at the end of HoC, Wright reconfirms Claire - and the series that introduced binge-watching (with all episodes of a season dropping in one go), and redefined television - is definitely not coming back. Having spent over half a decade with Claire, what's she going to miss most? "Her clothes," she says.

Shekhar Kapur tells BT what a marvel Stan Lee was, and how knowing him has enriched his life
As told to Purba Dutt (BOMBAY TIMES; November 16, 2018)

I met Stan Lee several times, and that was because I had a comic books company and used to, and still, write comics. The original company was formed between Deepak Chopra, Richard Branson, Sharad Devarajan and myself. Every time I met Stan, we used to discuss stories and share ideas on superheroes. He was very keen to do things in China and India. He was convinced that ultimate mythology exists in these two countries, and Stan used to draw a lot on mythology to create his superheroes.

I showed him my film Mr. India, and after watching it, he said to me, ‘You’ve got it right, Shekhar! You created a superhero out of an ordinary man’. He used to always say that a superhero is formed out of an ordinary person, and when the superpowers are taken away from him, one must remember that he’s an ordinary person. I have my short take on this. Whenever writers approach me with stories on superheroes, my one question to them always is — what’s his kryptonite? What is it that makes him weak? What is it that can break him down? You cannot have a superhero without his kryptonite. That kryptonite is what can take away his power, and keep him ordinary. So, a superhero has to be someone who even when devastated by his kryptonite fights beyond his vulnerabilities. Stan and I used to have long discussions on this.

He wanted to create superheroes from other cultures. Stan was really, really, really ahead of his times. And he never stopped. Every time we met, we’d bounce ideas of each other, and he was forever asking, ‘What do you think of this idea? What do you say about a superhero like this? How about doing this?’ He was unstoppable. I once told him that the world was fast changing, and we needed to have superheroines like Wonder Woman, and he readily agreed. ‘Yes, Shekhar, yes, yes, we need superheroines.’ He said when he had started writing his comic books, his audience was mainly in America, but now every culture needed to have its own superheroes. I am now even more inspired to make a superhero movie. Superheroine, really. The only superhero movie coming out of India that has stood the test of time is Mr. India. It’s about time I made the next. The last time I met Stan was four years ago, and he told me about the stories he was working on. I believe he sold a few of those stories to China. We had talked of the possibility of creating an Indian superhero, and there’s already a lot of work that has been done on this. So, work on that continues, though right now I am totally taken in with the idea of launching India’s first superheroine, Devi, based on the character in my comic book with Graphic India.

I’d say that I am very inspired by Stan to make a superheroine film in India.

Charting his battle with the cigarette, Aamir Khan reveals he has been puffing on a pipe for the past few months
Upala KBR (MID-DAY; November 6, 2018)

Aamir Khan had famously said that he would give up smoking cigarettes after the release of Dangal (2016). Two years down the line, the superstar has got rid of the habit — well, only partly. Talking to mid-day, Khan revealed that while he kicked the butt three months ago, he has been puffing on a pipe since. Turns out, it was one of his friends from outside the industry who introduced him to the gentleman's vice.

"One of my friends said that if I wanted to smoke, I should smoke a pipe. I liked it so much that I can't go back to a cigarette now. I tried one sometime back, but the moment I took a puff, I found the taste horrible," laughs Khan, who recently made a road trip from Lake Como to Milan especially to buy over a dozen pieces from a reputed pipe shop there. In fact, not too long ago, his Thugs Of Hindostan co-star Katrina Kaif had shared a picture of the actor puffing on a pipe, which went viral.

Having been a fairly heavy smoker in the past, Khan says he would find himself reaching for a cigarette every time his film was gearing up for release. "I quit smoking for two-three years when I was training for Dhoom 3 (2013). But then, I went back to it again. I tend to smoke more when my movie releases. Kiran [Rao, wife] would be affected by the cigarette smoke, but she isn't averse to the pipe. I even tried my hand at cigars, but did not find the experience satisfying."

The actor also reveals that ahead of the Thugs Of Hindostan shoot, he was worried that Amitabh Bachchan might be offended by his smoking. He apparently turned to good friend and Bachchan's frequent co-star Shah Rukh Khan for advice. "Shah Rukh told me, 'Amit ji is cool, you can smoke in front of him. If he scolds you, just run away.' Next thing you know, Amit ji and I are watching Wonder Woman during the shoot in Malta and he tells me, 'I heard you asked Shah Rukh if you can smoke in front of me.' I didn't know how to react," laughs Khan, adding, "But Amit ji was cool."

Divya Kaushik (BOMBAY TIMES; April 14, 2018)

It seems that coming to India is never exhausting for Priyanka Chopra, even if it is just for 16 hours. The actress recently spared a day from her tight shooting schedule in Ireland to be in Delhi to attend an event as the Goodwill Ambassador of UNICEF. During her brief visit to the city, she also met her mother, Madhu Chopra. Soon after attending the Partners’ Forum 2018, we met her for a quick chat and Priyanka candidly talked about her life in Hollywood by elaborating on topics such as attending the Emmy Awards with five other South Asians last year, the gender pay gap in Hollywood and her meeting with young children who want to be like her. Excerpts:

‘WHETHER IT IS BOLLYWOOD OR HOLLYWOOD, THERE ARE ONLY A FEW ROLES FOR WOMEN THAT ARE AMAZING’
In a recent article, Priyanka revealed that she lost a part in a movie last year because of her skin colour. While the article was doing the rounds on social media, the actress clarified that the point she wanted to address was how women are “put in the box” all the time, whether it is in India or elsewhere. She said, “What I was trying to say is that women are put in the box all the time. In this case, they wanted someone with a different physicality and that was what I was told and then the interpretation was that they wanted someone from a different race and I didn’t understand that. I was affected by that a little bit. It has happened a bunch of times.” The problem, she said, is that the number of good lead roles for an actress are still very less. “Whether it is Bollywood or Hollywood, there are a few roles for women that are just amazing. You know, leading parts that will excite women, so whenever there are such roles, women try and get those, which makes it easier for a producer or a studio to say, ‘You know, if you won’t settle at the price that we want to give you, we will get somebody else’, because there are so many people who want that. There are not enough opportunities for women. Until we create those opportunities, people are either going to tell me that I am of the wrong skin colour or they’ll ask me to do the film for one per cent of what the hero is getting, because, ‘I am sorry, par aise hi toh picture banti hai,’ which I was told until last year. It still happens and it will continue to happen, but the thing is that I have the ability to talk about it. There are people who would stand next to me and say, ‘Yeah, that is happening and it is alright to talk about it’,” said Priyanka.

‘AT THE EMMY AWARDS, WE WERE VERY EXCITED THAT WE WERE SIX SOUTH ASIANS TOGETHER’
How South Asians are now visible in America at prominent positions has been a topic of discussion for some time. From Mindy Kaling to Riz Ahmed, the examples are many. Priyanka says that she has never considered getting recognition in some other country an achievement. “As an actor, I want to be the best that I can be. The fact that I am working in another country or getting recognition there is not my achievement. My achievement is that people know me through my work. I was at the Emmys when Riz Ahmed won his Emmy for lead actor in a limited series. We were all standing and excitedly talking about how there were six South Asians at the Emmys that year (2017). Five years ago, there must have been only two. Mindy Kaling once said in one of her interviews that there was never a part that really came to her. She had to write the parts that came to her. Main writer bani nahi hoon abhi tak, but I am someone who has really dug my feet in when I have gone there on behalf of the South Asian community,” said Priyanka.

‘I HOPE THAT IN MY LIFETIME, I GET TO SEE A FEMALE-LED FILM BREAK BOX OFFICE RECORDS’
Be it as part of the film industry as an actor and producer, or as the Goodwill Ambassador of UNICEF, Priyanka has always volunteered for equal rights for women and has spoken about the gender pay gap, which she said isn’t just the problem of Bollywood and Hollywood. “This is a global problem — women are second class citizens. We are living in a patriarchal world, whether it is in America or India. I hope that in my lifetime, I get to see that a female-led film has broken the number records, which Wonder Woman did in 2017. We finally had a woman superhero film, directed by a female and it earned big money in the global entertainment industry. I hope that in my lifetime, I can see more movies like that. That will change the mindset of the society in general — where you can accept a woman as a hero, where it’s okay for a boy to say I want to be like her. Like I have had little boys coming to me and say that to me about Quantico, that I want to fight like Alex Parrish. It’s so amazing to play a character that affects a unisex mindset. Now that is a movement we need to see,” said Priyanka, who made it to the list of world’s highest paid TV actresses in 2017. “I don’t like to speak about money and the specifics, but I think I need to make this point — check the list of male and female actors in that list, and check the income disparity between number one female and number one male. It is the same medium, but still that disparity. So, I am not going to say ‘Yay! I am a part of that international list.’ That is not my aim,” she said.

‘MY FATHER TOLD ME NOT TO BE AFRAID TO HAVE AN OPINION'
Priyanka has been meeting women in small villages and towns across the world, creating awareness on issues. Talking about her experiences, she said, “I have been working for a decade or so as a Goodwill Ambassador and the most incredible thing for me is to meet these women across the world and realise the tenacity and confidence these girls have, despite dealing with different issues in their lives — issues like child marriage, displacement and different kinds of abuse. I go to a refugee camp or to a small village and meet girls not getting opportunities, but still many of them do end up becoming community leaders because they have support from their communities.”

Talking about restrictions that girls often have to face, Priyanka said, “We often restrict our girls and they are often asked, ‘Tum kahan gayi thi?’ Does anyone ask boys this? Why we don’t ask boys is because it is believed that guys are free, they can do anything. Girls don’t feel empowered enough by the men around them, confident enough that they can achieve their dreams.”

She added that she was raised to be an opinionated girl. “I come from a very privileged background, and by privilege I don’t mean wealth, I mean that my parents asked my opinion. I was raised to be an opinionated girl. My father told me, ‘Don’t be afraid to have an opinion, and if you do, raise it, say it’. I was raised as a thinking person. I’m privileged, all of us sitting here are privileged because we have roofs on our heads, we have food that we can eat, we have the ability to go to school, we have the ability to make our own choices and our own decisions. When we are that privileged, it is our social responsibility, it is our social duty to make a difference to someone’s life, somehow, somewhere,” she said.


Priyanka also met Prime Minister Narendra Modi during her Delhi visit, alongwith Union Health Minister JP Nadda and Michelle Bachelet, former president of Chile and Incoming Chair of PMNCH (Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health)

Diljit Dosanjh talks leaving effusive comments on reality TV star Kylie Jenner and actress Gal Gadot’s social media profiles, promises to do a Punjabi film every year, says playing a cop should be a cakewalk now
Natasha Coutinho (MUMBAI MIRROR; February 13, 2018)

Diljit Dosanjh who is just two films old in Bollywood has plenty on his plate this year. Welcome to New York with Sonakshi Sinha is gearing up for a February 23 release while his sports biopic Soorma, on India’s former hockey captain Sandeep Singh is ready and Arjun Patiala, a romcom with Kriti Sanon, kicks off on Valentine’s Day. He’s also busy with the second season of his singing reality show. When he isn’t making news at work, his social media grabs eyeballs. Over to Diljit…

Your comments on Gal Gadot and Kylie Jenner’s social media posts have grabbed a lot of attention.
I am quite active on Instagram and just because I’m an artiste myself, there is no rule that I shouldn’t follow others. Not just Gal Gadot and Kylie Jenner, I also comment on Sonakshi Sinha’s profile, the only difference being that she knows me personally, unlike the other two. If I like a picture posted by an actresses and mann mein baat aati hai, toh likh deta hoon. And whatever I write on a girl’s profile becomes famous while my comments on guys go unnoticed. I don’t have a publicist in Mumbai so I have to thank Gal Gadot and Kylie Jenner for keeping me in the news.

What did you think of Gal’s film, Wonder Woman?
I watched it in the theatre and frankly didn’t expect to like it as much as I did. The film was set against the backdrop of a war which made it interesting as I was also shooting for a war film, Rangroot, then.

Now that you are busy with Hindi films are you still open to Punjabi offers?
I will be doing one Punjabi film every year. This year it’s Rangroot, which is based on World War I. I don’t want to lose my fans in Punjab, they want to see me in movies and singing songs.

Your Arjun Patiala will be filmed in Punjab from this month. Tell us more?
Well, I play a police officer. I’ve already played one in my Punjabi film Jatt and Juliet as well as my Hindi debut, Udta Punjab, so it should be a cakewalk. I just need to focus on the body language and learning my lines well.

That must be a relief after the tough prep for Soorma?
I was lucky I got to train with the legendary Sandeep (Singh) paji who taught me the game in minute detail. He was very patient, knowing I was new to hockey. Honestly I had never played any sport in my life and learnt hockey for a month from him. Both of us spent our Diwali break last year with hockey sticks, sacrificing on family time. Films like Soorma demand massive prep, I can’t look unprepared on screen.

I was living with paji at his Shahabad home for a long time and observed the way he speaks and even figured out how he thinks which helped me in my performance. His brother Bikramjeet also offered suggestions on how I could improve. Being offered a biopic in my second year of Bollywood is a big deal and with Shaad Ali as the director, I was ready to go the extra mile. There is a lot of pressure on the back as you have to stay bent over for hours at a stretch while playing. I had to get used to it.

How’s Sonakshi Sinha, your Welcome to New York co-star?
Sonakshi is a fabulous co-star, so normal in her behavior. She doesn’t behave like the daughter of a star of the stature of Shatrughan Sinha. I play a Punjabi boy and I hope fans love my conversations with her Gujarati fashion designer character in the film.

Why did you agree to a second season of the singing reality show Rising Star?
I don’t take up any other work on the weekend when I’m doing Rising Star since it’s a live show but I only shoot for two hours. I don’t listen to the contestants sing before the shoot because I believe I won’t be able to rate them accurately hearing them the second time around. So I watch the performances live, along with the audience.

How’s your rapport with co-judges Shankar Mahadevan and Monali Thakur?
I never imagined I would work on a film with Shankar Mahadevan but he has given music for Soorma. Monali is a National Award winner. She started out as a reality show contestant and now she judges one. She sure has come a long way.

Wonder Woman is a highly entertaining superhero film and thankfully much more engaging than DC’s Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice. There’s no dull moment – there’s always something happening, thereby justifying its 141 minutes length. The action scenes are terrific and a visual spectacle. Kudos also to screenwriter Allan Heinberg and director Patty Jenkins for the stylized execution, especially in the war sequences. There couldn’t have been anyone else other than Gal Gadot for this role. She looks stunning and performs like a pro. Most importantly, she looks every inch a ‘Wonder Woman’. Who knew this girl who made just a small impact with Fast Five and Fast & Furious 6 would go on to become an actress to watch out for in the near future! Chris Pine delivers a fantastic performance too. On the flipside, the climax is slightly underwhelming. Do watch this film while it’s still in theatres – it surely deserves to be experienced on the BIG screen!

My rating - **** ½ out of 5!