"The whole world knows that Heroine is my movie"
Speculation is high as to whether Kareena Kapoor will be the new female lead for the Madhur Bhandarkar film ‘Heroine’ replacing Aishwariya Rai Bachchan further to the announcement of her pregnancy.
Reports are spreading about this news. However, there is no confirmation from Madhur on the announcement because on 19th July 2011, he tweeted on Twitter saying: “No one has been finalised to play th lead in “HEROINE” till now. I request to Pls dismiss all the baseless rumours & speculation.”
Reports claim that the final race between Priyanka Chopra and Kareena Kapoor for the part was won by Kareena who accepted the offer of the role. A quote from Kareena on accepting the role says: “I’ve said yes to Madhur and okayed the script. Now the dates and fee etc are being worked out.”
The film was ‘shelved’ after 10 days of shoot when its initial heroine Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s pregnancy news hit the world, sending Bhandarkar into a state of anguish and depression.
Madhur blogged on his site reacting to the unplanned saga of his film on 5th July 2011:
“Today I am sitting alone in my office after the plugs being pulled off from my film Heroine… My conscience stands clear as I have been honest to my craft irrespective of the repercussions…. No which way would I have trampled my dream project on which I have given my sweat and blood for almost 1 1/2 years…. This was going to be my most ambitious project of my career…”
The departure of Aishwarya from the film resulted in a major fall out between Bhandarkar and the Bachchans. Bhandarkar felt major betrayal and was very angry over why Aishwariya did not break the news before shooting began.
Bhandarkar blogged openly regarding the matter saying:
“The entire event would not have taken place if on the onset the actress would have informed the state of her health an impending maternity…. The truth was hidden from us. We learnt about the entire thing from news channels like the rest of the world that the said actress was 4 months pregnant and she was due on November…”
“Film making in Mumbai film industry is not a mere business but one big fraternity who functions on total faith and trust.”
Amitabh Bachchan defended his daughter-in-laws situation and said: “It is a fact that each artist and director needs to face, but if the director or producer will put a no-pregnancy clause during the course of shooting, or prevent an actor from getting married, then they should also stipulate the time period within which they will finish the film.”
After this war of words, news emerged that the production of the film will not resume immediately. Madhur tweeted on 12th July saying: “Speculations in the media of me approaching actresses for my film HEROINE are totally baseless !!! Whether i will revive film HEROINE, will decide after consultations with UTV or a fresh film , will surely update u in near future !!!”
Interestingly, Kareena was originally offered the film prior to Aishwairya but dates were not working out. Speaking of this the actress says: “The whole world knows that Heroine is my movie, that it was written for me and Madhur was in talks with me. I couldn’t do it because of date problems so he moved on. What happened in between is not my concern.”
It’s reported a meeting took place in Hyderabad where Kareena was meeting partner Saif Ali Khan on some time-out from her busy schedule. There she received a script narration of ‘Heroine’ which subsequently got the okay from her.
Many wonder if Kareena would be weary of offending the Bachchan’s in this instance but she is not fazed by the issue. “I don’t base my decisions on whether someone will be pleased or offended. I say yes to the script,” comments Kareena.
A UTV source revealed in reports that a key condition for Kareena to accept the role in ‘Heroine’ was that she wanted some changes to the script. The source : “Kareena has consented to the snorting, drinking and smoking scenes. Earlier, she had strong reservations against them. Now, she just doesn’t want to do the explicit lovemaking scenes with Arjun Rampal and Sudhir Mishra’s discovery Arunoday Singh. Those scenes are extremely sexy and Kareena is just not comfortable doing them.”
And when questioned if she got her way, Kareena replies: “Of course. Madhur has been quite accommodating. But frankly, I don’t know what the fuss is about.”
“I liked what was narrated to me the first time. If the director is open to discussion, we’ll talk more. But I know what kind of movie Heroine is; what kind of movies Madhur makes. He brings out a different side to an actor in an explosive fashion, and I’ve always liked to experiment, rather than just be a singing-dancing, glamorous star,” comments Kapoor.
Kareena has been shuttling between five big movies starring the main Khans of Bollywood – Bodyguard (with Salman Khan), RA.One (with Shahrukh Khan), Agent Vinod (with Saif Ali Khan), An Act Of Murder (with Aamir Khan) and Short Term Shaadi (with Imran Khan).
Despite the reports from Kareena’s camp saying she is destined as the new ‘Heroine’ there is still incomplete confirmation over the whole story from the director, Madhur Bhandarkar.
It’s evident Madhur is extremely passionate about this particular film, having made Bollywood hits such as ‘Fashion’ with Priyanka Chopra and ‘Corporate’ with Bipasha Basu. He has been emotionally scarred by the sequence of events leading to the halt of shooting. On his blog he wrote: “I have been working on the script for almost a year and a half…. I could not come to the office for almost 8 days for the fear of facing those people whose bread and butter depended upon the film… because in true sense these people were the worst affected by the turn of events…”
If Kareena is the new ‘Heroine’ as the reports suggest, hopefully, it will allow Madhur Bhandarkar to realise his ambition for the movie.
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