ALIA BHATT COMES OF AGE

With every movie, Alia Bhatt just gets better. She’s gone from that cutesy, bubbly actress in Student of The Year to a nuanced performer in Raazi

Although the actor started off with the typical girl-next-door roles (think 2 States or Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania), she has proven her acting chops and graduated to mature roles that really bring out the artist in her (Highway, Udta Punjab, Dear Zindagi being some of the examples).

So it was no surprise that Alia would give yet another sensational performance in her latest. Dad Mahesh Bhatt certainly seems to think so.

In a heart-warming tweet recently, the filmmaker said that he’s proud his daughter Alia Bhatt is “flying higher and higher”.

“Alia my girl you are flying higher and higher! Get addicted to bettering yourself. Love (sic),” Mahesh posted, following the rave reviews the actor is getting for her performance in Raazi

Alia plays a Kashmiri girl who gets married to a Pakistani Army officer and becomes a spy to protect her own country. The film marks the first time that Alia has shared screen space with her mother, Soni Razdan, another prolific actor.

Clearly, Alia gets the best of both her parents – no wonder she’s going places.

You’d think that with everything Aishwarya has achieved in life – right from the Miss World title to working with the most prolific filmmakers and actors in the industry, both Indian and foreign, she would regret nothing.

Well, you’d be wrong. The former beauty queen recently admitted that she has been “school girlish” in her choices and that she should have given more thought to taking up better projects.

The actor, who was at the 71st Cannes Film Festival, said, “I think I was very school girlish in my choices... I was very good at keeping with schedules, and because of that I kind of walked away from some very great films and opportunities... because I would be sincere to schedules. Now when I think back, I should have maybe been more fierce and aggressive with wanting the films and allowed the schedules to figure themselves out as I have seen a lot of colleagues have worked over the years.”

Aishwarya also surprised everyone when she decided to take a substantial break from acting to look after her daughter Aaradhya, only returning in 2015 with Jazbaa

“Even now, I get asked, ‘Why don’t we see more of you?’ Yes, I want to do more films. I have been a little easy on my time planning... I have happily played mummy to Aaradhya and thrown work around here and there. Even now when I am offered a good script, I feel like working but then I think, ‘Let me take one more holiday this month. I will do the next one’. I think this attitude needs to change,” she said, laughing. We for one think that it’s great to see that Aishwarya has her priorities set straight and knows what she wants out of life. And who knows, her next movie but just be round the corner.

SHARMILA TAGORE WAS ‘IN AWE’ OF SATYAJIT RAY

Well, who wouldn’t? After all, Satyajit Ray is one of the finest filmmakers the world has ever seen. Ray’s first film Pather Panchali won 11 international prizes, including the inaugural Best Human Document award at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival. This film, along with Aparajito and Apur Sansar form The Apu Trilogy. Despite being such a luminary, he was never one to give instructions on a set, Sharmila Tagore says.

The actor, who was present at an exhibition on the filmmaker, said that he never asked them to memorise dialogues. In case you didn’t know, Sharmila kickstarted her film career with Ray’s 1959 Bengali film Apur Sansar (The World of Apu) when she was all of 13.

“I started working at 13 and he never over-instructed us. I was given the script but (was) never made to memorise the dialogues. He would come very close to you and whisper in your ear what you had to do and in no time, we were in awe of him. We were never nervous with him,” said the 73-year-old, adding, “It was very easy to follow him. He would never treat a child like a child.”

The actor added that Ray’s films were created despite many materialistic constraints, and that’s what made him a great filmmaker. “The way he had to raise money for Pather Panchali is part of film lore. Floors were full of potholes, making a simple trolly shot was a huge challenge and at that time, there was a lot of load shedding and the power cuts used to cost him dearly. But he improvised constantly.”

SO WHAT IF I DIDN’T WIN: ANUPAM KHER ON BAFTA

He may not have won a BAFTA, but that doesn’t stop Anupam Kher from being a happy man. Kher lost the Best Supporting Actor Award to Irish actor Brian F. O’Byrne, but the Indian actor is proud of his nomination and said there is always a next time.

He was nominated for the Virgin TV British Academy Television Awards in 2018 for his work in the adaptation of Sathnam Sanghera’s memoir The Boy with the Topknot, a TV movie. The award went to O’Byrne for Little Boy Blue at the ceremony on Sunday.

“Thank you Bafta for the Best Supporting Actor nomination for The Boy With The Topknot. It’s a great honour for me, for a Hindi medium educated boy from a small town in India whose father was a clerk in the forest department.”

The actor added, “Thank you to the Indian film industry for giving me wonderful opportunities... I was not announced the winner among the four nominees this evening, but nevertheless, I feel humbled and honoured. There is always a next time.”

I’M NOT HERE TO MAKE MONEY: RICHA CHADHA

Richa Chadha is a chameleon, you might say. Never one to conform to norms, Richa has found her niche in