Posts Tagged ‘judge’
When actors are asked to grace an event, particularly a school function, you expect them to prove to be good role models for the kids, encouraging them to study hard and eat right. However, if the actor happens to be Salman Khan, you can expect the unthinkable.
Salman, who had been invited to judge for an event at Jamnabai Narsee school, Juhu, shared some little known anecdotes about his own school days with the kids present, all between 11-19.
“Salman had said he would come on time (4pm) and stay the whole evening. The school authorities were expecting him to make a brief appearance, but he surprised everyone by taking time off to be there throughout,” says a source.
When called on stage to say a few words, his speech took everybody by surprise. “When Salman was asked to share memories of his school days, the audience braced themselves for a dose of nostalgia. However, he recalled how he would bunk classes constantly and was rusticated from four schools. He also confessed that he was the school bully – he even asked the resident bully of the school to raise his hand. One hand did go up.” By this time, the students were almost falling off their seats while the teachers didn’t know where to look.
It didn’t end there. When he was asked by the children to dance on stage with them, he quipped, “I don’t dance without being paid.” Even before the stunned kids and teachers could recover from that statement, he had already proceeded to dance to one of his own songs on stage.
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| Salman at the event |
Meanwhile…
Salman’s love for kids is unbelievable. At the event, Salman went on stage twice and enjoyed himself with the kids. He danced with the kids and even promoted his forthcoming film Veer saying, ‘there is a veer in all of you’ which has got you to come on the stage and perform like this’. After the dance, he gave out music CDs of the film to the kids. While leaving the venue, some of the kids followed him. Unknowingly, his guard pushed one of them. Despite the crowd, Salman noticed this. When he realised that the kid was hurt, he lost his temper at his guard. He made his guard apologise to the kid. He also hugged the kid and gave him the music CD of Veer with his autograph on it. The child’s day was definitely made as he left with a big smile on his face and memories to last a lifetime.
–Kunal M Shah
Everyone knows Kangna Ranaut, the accomplished actress of today. Here, she talks of her past and how it has made her the person she is
• What sort of a child were you?
I was very quiet. I used to suck my thumb. Other kids would never play with me and I would be sitting in one corner. There was something very strange about me. I didn’t live in the present. I was always in a dream world. I would be dreaming about the shows that I watched like Aladdin or Snow White and I would want to go to their world. My father would hate that I sucked my thumb, he would slap me and put my finger down and then I would cry.
• Were your parents strict with you?
I was never a naughty child, never troubled my mother. If you ask my parents they will say that I was very quiet, very peaceful and very scared of them. If they asked me to sit somewhere after five hours I would still be there. (laughs)
• Did you lead a very restricted life?
Yeah, I did. I wasn’t allowed to leave home after 6 o’clock so I would always make sure that I would go out late in the night. Then when my parents would say something like, ‘Andhera ho gaya hai, tum late aayi,’ I would just say ‘yes’. Slowly I became a person who wouldn’t listen to anyone. My father would be very upset with the clothes that I would wear. I don’t know what I wanted to prove. Now when I go home, I usually wear a salwaar kameez and wonder, why was I torturing them? (laughs)
A lot of the restriction came from living in a joint family. I remember having the biggest fights with my grandfather and every one’s jaw would just drop. Nobody had the guts to answer back to him and I was only 12 when I started doing so. He is an IAS officer and had lived all his life in Mumbai and for some strange reason he would always say that first all the males of the family would eat and then the females. I didn’t approve of rules like that and would insist on joining the men at the table. He would leave the table. My parents were quite embarrassed because of me.
• When was the first time you fell in love?
I was quite young. He was my English teacher, a very good looking guy and I was just a 13-year-old. That was the time I became aware of my sexuality. We were very comfortable with each other because he had been my teacher since I was eight or nine. But when I was thirteen and he would say, ‘Beta come here..’ or something like that, I would think what’s wrong with him, he doesn’t have to talk this way (laughs aloud). That was a beautiful romance because in my mind I used to romance him and he would be teaching me.
• How does living in a small town (Manali) compare to living in Mumbai?
These are two completely different worlds. This one is completely fake and that one is the real world. In Manali people live with animals. They feed them fodder and clean them too. So much of nature is involved there that you stay balanced. Here you deal with cars, roads, buildings and if you see a beggar, you treat him like a building and you treat a building like a human being. There is no reality here. I see so much of balance there, I see no balance here.
• What were you studying in Delhi?
Basically I went there for my vacations and then I decided to take admission in some college. Then I met a few people there and got into theatre. If you ask me honestly, I cannot recollect that time. I was like an animal, just wandering around. If someone was going to a modelling agency, I too would go with that person. I wasn’t aware of my actions at all which is a very pathetic and shameful way to live but I was living a life like that.
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• So coming to Mumbai was also a part of that life?
Yes, my agency Elite sent me to Mumbai. I didn’t ask why I am going to Mumbai or what I will do in Mumbai. I came to Mumbai because I thought everybody came to Mumbai after Delhi. Then one fine day I stopped taking calls from the agency. I stopped going to the auditions. I used to go to town taking trains to give auditions and then within seven days of it all I was fed up. Then I said, ‘Forget it! I am not going to any audition as I don’t get any work.’
• Isn’t it all difficult for a young girl to manage?
It is and that’s what gets you into trouble. How do people get into problems? Actually they are the biggest problems for themselves. I got carried away with the life here, the nightlife, discos and the whole city life.
• You didn’t have any aspirations?
From childhood I would tell my parents and I would become somebody very famous. They used to be very rude to me when I would say this but for me it was always a matter of fact. I knew I was going to be what I wanted to be even if I had no idea what that was.
• And when you were rejected at the auditions, did it dent in your confidence?
It did. I went through a lot of insecurities. I was leading a very random life for a year before I got Gangster. Before that too, I was supposed to do a few films. I didn’t have any concept of A grade or B grade cinema. I had hardly seen 10 films in my life. So if someone said, come to this audition, we want to sign a film with you, I would sign it. Fortunately for me, those films never took off. My parents would tell me that I would never be anyone and they would say all sort of negative things and I would think maybe they were right. I would think of myself as a loser in every sense, not only professionally but also in my personal life. That would scare me but also it wouldn’t last.
• Is there anything that you hated about yourself and wanted to change?
I hated everything about myself, my life, everything. When I came here, I was very uncomfortable about the clothes that I wore. I used to wear those really cheap clothes, buy them from streets and wear them and I would look so funny. I used to feel funny, not that I looked funny. Those dresses were not appropriate and no one should go out on the streets in them. They were fine for parties but I had no concept of what to wear and when. And I looked like a 16-year-old coming from some village trying to be modern. Not that I was dumb, I was intelligent but it was just so weird that people kept looking at me not very respectfully and I hated being so uncomfortable. If I had been wearing just jeans and a T-shirt, nobody would have noticed me. That was worse because if you are looking for assignments and modelling work and if nobody notices you then it’s terrible. So I was uncomfortable in every way. I never became friendly with anyone. Life was strange without parents, proper food, proper house, nothing at all in place. I hated everything around me and the way I was. I would go on for weeks and weeks without thinking where I was heading. That was a phase I remember and someday I will definitely make a movie on that.
• Was there peer pressure to do things?
I would do whatever others did. It didn’t matter if I liked it or not. It wasn’t peer pressure definitely but because I wanted to be one of them or maybe I wanted to prove that I belonged to this world, I went on like that for years and years. I didn’t hate it at that point of time. If I would have hated it, I would have changed it. But I had no clue what was wrong with my life. It took me two years to realise who I really am. Not that I hated it but I wasn’t happy either.
• Were you lonely?
Loneliness was never a problem because whenever I was lonely I would do something that would make me happy. My problem was that I had too many people around me and they never let me be alone. Before I became an actress, I would go for auditions with people, have coffee and come back, normal life, not very different from Delhi. Then after I became an actress, there were designers, ADs, people who roam around the whole day on the sets. They kind of open those doors for you. You get shocked with what is happening around you but you don’t show it. This is how your new life starts and it just takes over.
• You also got into some wrong relationships…
Well, when you get into a relationship it’s not wrong at that point of time and I won’t consider anything wrong with them. For me, I have been in two relationships till now, and both have been beautiful in their own way. It was I who was a random soul, and I still am. I still have so many things to learn in life. I am not a perfect person, nobody is perfect. So whatever experience one goes through is because of oneself.
• Did you at anytime realise that you were in relationship that you shouldn’t be in?
See, relationships are not that important in my life. I don’t feel any pressure to say that love means everything and blah blah! For me, I don’t think love is something which will make me complete. It’s who I am. I have something to prove and I have a strong urge to do certain things in life. And if I don’t do that, I will be a very unhappy person. I never gave that kind of priority to any relationship. If I would have done that I would have been in a happy relationship and an unhappy career. I am clear about my priorities now. People at times judge me. They say that she says her priority is her career and her ambitions… but that’s ok. I am not ashamed of the fact that it actually is.
Today I am done with dating. Now if I get into a relationship, it will be with a proper plan. Now I would want to be with a man with whom I can see a future and give it more time and energy. If I see a man turning into my husband in the near future then only will I go ahead with a relationship. This is what life or age does to you. You can preserve your innocence but at the same time you cannot deny the fact that you cannot sometimes take another chance with life.
• So that means you are not going to fall wildly in love now because you are first going to look into the husband aspect of it.
Yeah. That’s true actually; otherwise I have always fallen in love first and then seen the right and wrong of it.
• You are too young to reach this decision. At this age people are still having flings.
Yes, if you start little late. But I started too early. (laughs) I started at 16. (laughs loudly)
• Are you still edgy?
That’s a very difficult question because to explain who I was is very difficult even for me. I mean nobody knows who they really are. Right now, I am definitely not the person who I want to be. There is still a lot to achieve but I am also definitely not the person I hated to be. I am okay now, peaceful, but I want to be a better person in future. I am sure the better part of me is still to come.
• Who do you want to be?
I just want to be a person whose very presence makes people smile. I want to have positivity and grace as a woman. When I came here, I was a tomboy. Not even a tomboy, I was something between a guy and a girl. I want to be a nicer human being so that when I look at myself I should feel proud of myself. Right now I don’t feel proud of myself. Earlier I used to feel shit about me. Whatever I said, I did, everything was wrong. I would always say the wrong thing at the right time. Now I don’t do those things which make me hate myself. I don’t beat myself up everyday when I go home. I am peaceful. But I am not even the person who would be so proud of herself.
• Are you ever fake?
Yes, I sometimes say things for the sake of saying things. Like the most common thing that I would say, “How are you?” makes me feel so fake. I prefer to say, “Kaise hain aap?” that makes me realise what I am saying. When I say it, I do really mean, kaise hain aap? So I am watching myself.
• When you were in trouble at any point in your life, have you taken any favours from your friends?
I have never ever taken any favour from anyone in my life. I have never called up any friend to discuss my problems or ask them for solutions. I have really great friends who claim to stand by my side when I am in trouble. I have been in trouble but never had the courage to test them because if my time was already bad, I wouldn’t want one more shock. So I never really tested my friends.
• When you say you never had the courage, you mean you were scared that they would not be by your side?
I don’t know. I never had the courage to discuss my problems with people around. I have always shown the happier side of me and I will continue to do that. It’s not my friend’s duty or concern to help me out with my troubles. I think it’s unfair to do so.
The presence of friends makes me uncomfortable. It distracts me from the situation. It’s the same with my parents. Even in childhood when I was in trouble, I would lock myself up in my room and would not leave my room until I had solved the problem. I have a lot of faith in my strength but parents and friends get so weak and I just think handling them is much more difficult than handling the situation.
• How do you manage to look so different in every film? Is it deliberate?
Honestly, it is. It bores me to death to be the same because for me it’s a character that I have to get into. So I change everything that I can. So I kind of do the fun things so people are shocked but I don’t like myself looking the same all the time.
Sometimes it can be embarrassing. Recently, at the Paa premiere, one of my co-stars was treating me like a fan. It was only when I said, ‘I am Kangna,’ that he realised that it was me. It’s so embarrassing, we work together for 60 days and they don’t recognise me. It has happened with me a lot. When I was in theatre, my guru used to tell me that it is a blessing in disguise. At times he would give me a guy’s role. He said that you have a face which can be moulded into anything. But another thing that really matters is whether my hair is curly or straight. It changes me so much that sometimes I too wonder about the look. It’s very good for a double role though.
Rahul Mahajan goes looking for a bride on Rahul Dulhaniya Le Layenge, and also ends up with a sister. Raveena Tandon will perform the role of the didi, which is a pity for that’s the last role any man would imagine the gorgeous actress in.
Raveena is being paid a whopping figure to lend her moral support to Rahul Mahajan and his quest for the perfect bride.
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The TV channel has been negotiating with Raveena for a day’s shoot and to promote the show. Ravi Kisen, who played Rakhi Sawant’s brother, ended up hosting another show on the channel, Raaz Pichle Janam Ka. Reliable sources from the channel say that Raveena has been offered a bomb to appear in an episode as Rahul’s sister and select a girl for her ‘brother’.
Raveena, who was seen as a judge on two children shows earlier, is also making an appearance as a judge on another channel. For the current offer, her answer simply depends on the moolah: up the offer by five lakhs and she will be the world’s best sister.
“Raveena has asked for a whopping Rs 30 lakh and the channel is offering her Rs 25 lakh for the episode,” says a source. “She normally charges around Rs 8 lakh an episode if it is a running show.”
Confirming the development, Shailaja Kejriwal, EVP Content of the channel says, “Talks are on with her at the moment. But it has not been confirmed as yet.”
And if she has her way, she would be the highest paid actress on TV. Incidentally, Bipasha Basu who is going to be seen on a show produced by Red Chillies, has also asked for a similar amount and is being paid less than what she has asked for. “No, the amount you mention is rubbish,” says Kejriwal.
Sanskriti Media and Entertainment
MEENA IYER Times News Network (BOMBAY TIMES; December 10, 2009)
Life has come a full circle for former Miss World Priyanka Chopra. On December 12, nine years after she picked up her own crown, PC will be on the beauty pageant podium in Johannesburg as a judge for the final round of this year’s Miss World contest. “When Julia Morley, who is in charge of the beauty pageant, invited me to be a judge, I was ecstatic. There I was a teenager all those years ago, nervous as a help on the same platform. Now I’m going in a totally different capacity,” said Priyanka. The actress is happy she could work her busy shooting schedules around to accommodate this contest, which she considers a very prestigious one.
Back home, too, Priyanka is in a very happy place. Kareena Kapoor, Katrina Kaif and she are the top three Bollywood beauties who wield a certain power over the box office. Naturally, the best projects are divided between them. “This was a good year,” said the actress, “and hopefully 2010 will be as good if not better.”
She happily starts the year with Pyaar Impossible in January while also shooting with hotshot Ranbir Kapoor for Sajid Nadiadwala’s Anjaana Anjaani and with Bollywood supremo Shah Rukh Khan for Farhan Akhtar’s Don-2. “Besides these films, I’m scheduled to do a film with my Kaminey director Vishal Bharadwaj,” said the dusky beauty.
The low point of 2009 was when she cried herself to sleep after Ashutosh Gowarikar’s What’s Your Rashee came unstuck at the box office. “When you put blood, sweat and tears into a project and it doesn’t fetch you the kind of box office you hoped for, it hurts,” Priyanka admitted. But she did not rise to the bait when asked what she feels about co-star and ‘ex’ Harman Baweja making his feelings public for her long after they had split. Guess when things are looking up for her the way they are right now, she has every reason to be gracious.
All is not well on the sets of Dance Premier League (DPL). The show’s celebrity judge, Rani Mukerji is so flustered with the format of the show that she stormed out of the sets on Tuesday, November 17. The incident happened at a studio in Chembur.
Furthermore, Rani has curtly asked the show’s producers, Cineyug not to make her resume her position as the judge until her demands are met.
Commenting on why Rani is so upset, a source said, “Rani doesn’t want the DPL participants to be eliminated starting this level (Level 5). She is of the opinion that the DPL winner must be chosen from the existing participants.”
Consequently, the channel and the DPL producers Cineyug are in a fix. They are in no position to abide by her diktat as the show has already completed more than 60 per cent of its running time. Also, the format of the show cannot be changed overnight as it will involve a lot of planning.
The vice-president of the channel, Danish Khan, said, “We are only interested in the final product. Cineyug, who make this show for us, will be the right people to talk to you about this.”
Mohammed Morani of Cineyug confirmed the story and said, “I was out of town when Rani walked out of the show. I don’t know why Rani doesn’t want eliminations to happen at this level. We have reached Level 5 in the show and need to carry out the eliminations to make the contest interesting. We are trying to explain this to her.”
Irrfan Khan in Roadies!
Posted on: August 23, 2009
He started out with doing serials on the television, and now, after a slew of films, Irrfan Khan is heading back to TV. But this time around, it’s not a serial that has caught his fancy. “I will never do fiction on television. But yes, I am doing something different, something unique that I have never done before,” Irrfan says. A little probing reveals that Irrfan is excited about being a part of MTV’s hugely popular travel-based reality show, Roadies. Irrfan admits that he is doing the show. He says, “Yes, I’m doing the next season of Roadies. I have always wanted to do it, despite my heavy film schedules, because travel is something I enjoy immensely. In fact, one of the perks of being an actor is that it takes you to various parts of the world.” Irrfan looks forward to travelling within our country. “That’s exactly why I am agreeing to be a part of Roadies at a time when I can’t afford it. I am not being brought in as a judge or a contestant. I will be introduced into the show as a special commentator from the outside. What my exact role on the show, you’ll get to know only when you watch it,” Irrfan smiles. |
We all thought Ram Gopal Varma was done with the Bachchan family, on screen. After Sarkar 2, there was a fair amount of tension brewing between the Bachchans and RGV. Now, Ramu says that he is actually done with the Sarkar family, not the Bachchans. That’s why, it seems, Sarkar 3 was shelved. Ah well, all’s well that ends well… It’s evident that if friendships are fickle in Bollywood, so are fall-outs. To prove that all is now well, Amitabh Bachchan is set to do yet another film with Ramu. Ramu who is at the moment poised to release his next film another shiver-giver Agyaat and also putting finishing touches to his film on the electronic media Rann, will now do a take on the loopholes in the judicial system, in which Bachchan will play a judge. Yet untitled, the film is inspired by the rather curious run-ins Ramu has had with the judiciary where he was questioned about his own version of the national anthem in Rann. Says Ramu, “We’re starting a new film together in January 2010, about the judicial system. Mr Bachchan plays a judge.” It’s a first for the Big B who has played everything from a cop to a mafioso in his career, but never a judge. First things first, wasn’t there a fall-out between the Bachchans and Ram Gopal Varma and wasn’t he recently quoted as saying that his screen relationship with the Bachchan family is over? Replies Ramu, “I never said that. Whether it’s the Bachchans or Nitin Reddy whom I have brought from Kannada cinema to Hindi films for Agyaat, I’ll always work with actors I think to be suitable for my films. Whether they want to work with me or not, is entirely up to them. I’ve never said my screen relationship with the Bachchans is over.” So why was Sarkar 3 shelved? “There never was a Sarkar 3! I’m done with the Sarkar family, and that’s what I said,” says Ramu. “I never said I was done with the Bachchan family. I’m doing another film with Mr Bachchan in January not because I want do another film with him, but because he suits the character in my film perfectly. I’ve never worked with stars, only with actors.” Ramu will himself produce the new film with Amitabh Bachchan. |
