Hollywood comes calling at IIFA
Upala KBR tells you what happened when Van Damme joined the Bollywood stars in Dubai on Day 2 |
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| Hottie: Madhavan has lost oodles of weight for Mani Ratnam's Guru |
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Sagar kinare: Filmmakers Manmohan Shetty and
Mukesh Bhatt | Madhavan on diet
8 am: The day kicked off early. Shabana Azmi inaugurated the FICCI-IIFA Business Forum. Later, in the lobby, we caught one of the most powerful people in Bollywood, Manmohan Shetty from Adlabs and producer Mukesh Bhatt from Vishesh Films in a deep conversation.
Were they producing a film together or discussing the shootout at Vishesh Films on Wednesday? But before we could ask them, they split.
Madhavan, without his wife, Sarita and baby, clad in a plain white shirt and blue jeans looked dashing. He has lots oodles of weight. Weight loss ka raaz kya hai Madhavan? He says, "I lost weight because of Mani sir's film Guru. I have been working out and controlling my diet a bit." |
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| Kissi se na kehna: Hollywood actor Jean Claude Van Damme will give away the IIFA Best Actress award at the grand finale today | Aiming for Bollywood
7.30 pm: It's a date with Hollywood actor Jean Claude Van Damme, who's here as a special invitee of the IIFA event. He's here to give away the Best Actress award at the grand finale on June 16.
Chatting about being approached for an Indian production, Van Damme said, "I was approached to act in the Prince of Thieves, which was an Indian production. I saw Devdas and was extremely impressed by its grandeur and production values.
I live in Hong Kong and it's not that far from India, so I would like to visit India sometime soon. I am meeting lots of Indian directors, actors and actresses... maybe some day I will have the pleasure and honour to be a part of your culture."
Has he met Madhuri Dixit and Aishwarya Rai? "I have met them on screen not in person," smiles Van Damme who looks diminutive in his mauve suit, far removed from his brawny screen persona. He is acting in Asterix at the Olympic Games, Till Death, The Hard Corps and Second in Command.
Talking about Till Death he says, "It's an unusual film for me, as I play an officer in a drug enforcement agency. It's the best movie for me action-wise and is based on more reality than action." |
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| In Papa's footsteps: Vekeana Dhillon, Puneet Sira, Suniel Shetty, Feroz Khan & Fardeen Khan at the media briefing of Kurbani, the remake of the hit film Qurbani. Fardeen will play dad Feroze's role | Ek aur Qurbani
12 pm: Feroz Khan, Fardeen Khan and Sunil Shetty strode in to address the press briefing for Kurbani — the remake of Feroz's original Qurbani. The title track Kurbani composed by Anand Raj Anand had everybody swaying to it.
The change in the letter from Q to K is because "if Kurbani is a bigger hit than the original then we can say which Qurbani, the second or first," smiled Feroz.
He called making Kurbani the biggest challenge of his career. "It took me six months to decide to make this film, as I wasn't sure if I would be able to live up to the music and what I had achieved, when I made Qurbani 26 years ago."
Fardeen said he is, "Excited and nervous about stepping into dad's very big shoes, but this is one of dad's roles that I have always wanted to do." He added, "I am glad that papa is directing the film."
The cast till now is Fardeen, who plays Feroz's role, Feroz steps into Amjad Khan's shoes as the gum-chewing cop, but an "ageing one" and there's Jackie Shroff. "The female lead and Vinod Khanna's role we will be finalised in a month," said Feroz. "We have altered the characters slightly, keeping the spirit and essence the same and we will cast according to the characterisations and dates."
Sunil, who was there to provide moral support, calls Feroz "a true style icon." | |
| MALiNI'S MUMBAI |
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| From Paris with love: Hanna Has | Club buzz
Hanna Has and the cosmic kid David Chong will be spinning French House music tomorrow night at Squeeze (where they kick off their India tour). From what I hear, nobody throws a party like the Alliance Franaise and you can expect to find the whole trendy consulate crowd bopping to their beats. World Cup fans rejoice, yet another football-friendly destination is calling your name.
A big screen and cheap drinks are in store for those who venture out to Moksh (a Pritish Nandy Communications wellness place) at Breach Candy. DJ Aqeel jetted off to Dubai earlier this week and hinted that Poison should be back up and running shortly — still no word however from Hard Rock Caf Mumbai. |
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Party time: (Left) Suvedh Lohia with Malaika Arora Khan
and Amrita Arora |
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| Owais Khan, Sunny Sara and Ritik Bhasin | Celebrity spotting
Dilshad's beauty parlour in Bandra was the site of celebrity sprucing recently with Dilshad attending to Karan Johar, Tusshar Kapoor and Marc Robinson (Marc's baby girl Chanel got her golden locks trimmed for the very first time too.)
Nightclub owner (and resident party animal) Suvedh Lohia celebrated his birthday in legendary party mode on Wednesday night at Redlight.
Surrounded by a bevy of his most beautiful friends including, Malaika and Amrita Arora, Tara Sharma (with boyfriend Rupak Saluja), Sophia, Kim Sharma, Preeti Jhangiani, Dipika Padukone, Acquin Pais, Praveen Dabbas, Ashish Chowdhury, equally enthu co-owners — Sunny Sara, Ritik Bhasin, Shashi Thadani designers Rocky S, Arshia and Rij Eappen and even Himesh Reshammiya. The VIP section was overflowing with Mumbai's trendiest and as expected there were more than enough shot glasses to go around. |
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Sweetie pie: Anju Deewani (from Spain) met Emraan Hashmi in the UK on the sets of Dil Diya Hai. Apparently he's quite a sweetie and had this fan all a-gush
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