HOLLYWOOD BOLLYWOOD TELEVISION HOW TWITTER GOT MANDIRA BEDI TWO FILMS
The actor says the directors found her posts on the microblogging web site inspiring
Mandira Bedi is on cloud nine, as she has bagged a role in Saaho, which also stars Prabhas. She will play a negative role in the film that is expected to be a grand trilingual project, just like Baahubali, Prabhas’ last outing on the big screen.
Excited to be a part of the film, Mandira says, “I have started shooting and we’ve already shot for a couple of days in Hyderabad. Next, we’ll shoot in Mumbai and Abu Dhabi. What’s interesting about this film is the way makers have done the casting —lot of Hindi film actors along with many names from the South Indian film industry. So, it will become truly an all-India kind of a film.”
Though Mandira has not shot any scenes with Prabhas yet, she is looking forward to it.“I haven’t met him yet, so probably for our next schedule in Abu Dhabi, there will be some overlaps of scenes,” she says.
On how she finally bagged the role in Saaho, Mandira, who is also doing a Tamil film titled Adangathey, says, “Both the director [of Adangathey and Saaho] follow me on Twitter and based on my pictures, they related me to workout, fitness and thought of me for their respective films. [Also] they found my posts on Instagram very inspiring, hence I landed the role.”
Mandira shares that everything happened so fast that she didn’t even get time to let the feeling sink in. “I got a call from a casting director and three days later, I met the director and producer. They narrated the story to me and as it’s such a huge project, I wanted to be a part of it,” says the actor, who plays the role of a gangster in Saaho.
Actor Varun Sharma, who has made a mark for himself with films such as Fukrey (2013) and Dilwale (2015), feels that television is an equally attractive medium. He has done shows such as Ice Road Truckers, in which he visited unchartered terrains around India. Eager to take up more work on TV, he says, “Today, television is a medium, which is at par with films. It’s growing at a pace which is unimaginable, and reaches out to almost 22 million households. So many themes are being explored on television,” says Varun.
While he certainly appreciates content, which is innovative and different from the run-of-the-mill saas-bahu sagas, he also doesn’t dismiss the popularity of shows revolving around mythological creatures or taboo subjects.
“For every typical daily soap being made, with some shows creating controversy with themes such as a child marrying an adult, or naagins, you also have a show like actor Anil Kapoor’s 24 or a task-based reality show, so there is a balance of subjects,” adds Varun.
However, the actor points out that at the end of the day, television is for the masses.
“It would be wrong to say that we should stop making shows on these unusual subjects, because there is an audience for them out there, who love watching such crazy stuff,” adds the 27-year old actor, who will reprise his role as Choocha in the sequel to Fukrey, which also stars Richa Chadha, Pulkit Samrat and Ali Fazal.