Antara Maali can speak about being “irreplaceable” to Ram Gopal Varma. She has him wrapped around her little finger, ruling the roost at The Factory. Ramu has even set up a production company for her with her father, photographer and music video maker Jagdish Maali, looking after it. Hence the company is called ‘Do Maali’! But we know that Ramu is no 'Ek Fool'.

One up, two up

Kajol

Aamir Khan

It’s a comeback coup ? Aamir-Kajol in a Yash Raj film for which they are readily belting out three times more money to the Rising star in comparison to their ‘inhouse’ superstar Shah Rukh Khan (causing much heartburn of course to SRK). When Kajol was being cajoled by Karan Johar and friend Shah Rukh to make a comeback she was not too sure about it herself. But soon she shocked them all by signing a film opposite Aamir Khan to be directed by Kunal Kohli. Now, both are pretty strong-minded, to put it politely. And then Aamir with his expertise in scriptwriting is very finicky about footage. So when Kunal sent him the script, he almost had it rewritten with the limelight turned towards himself. ‘Comeback Kajol’ is equally keen on the limelight bit. So she first demanded the original script and then went on to make her own suggestions.And it's director Kunal Kohli in a Hum Tum fix. They are ready to start shooting this September, but without the intervention from the Chopras, it looks like a stalemate. Since no one wants to crack this casting coup no one's saying anything to anybody. But watch this space.

Now, seriously...

Sushmita Sen

While Vikram Bhatt is ‘seriously seeing’ Amisha Patel, and is himself ‘waiting in the wings’ for her to decide about marriage, he’s giving some serious thoughts to something else as well.The latest news doing the rounds is that Vikram is planning a film on his life and relationship with Sushmita Sen. And for that she’s almost decided on Sanjay Suri and Divya Dutta for the characters.Though, physically speaking, they do not resemble either Vikram or Sush, we’ll definitely want to know what Vikram has kept hidden inside his heart about the once-much-talked-about relationship. What does Amisha or Randeep Hooda have to say to that?

Salman Khan

Salman sans sankat

Controversy has been hounding Salman from the time Ash moved out of his life. And now the allegations are turning much much more serious. So father Salim Khan took help of the Industry astrologer, and sister Alvira’s good friend, Sunita Menon. And according to her advice, Sallu must stay out of the limelight till August 1. That’s why he wasn’t seen even at the premiere of Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya. But now that the deadly deadline is past we hope to see a Salman sans sankat.

SPOTLIGHT

‘No’ to nudity

Yes, that’s exactly what Teri Hatcher, one of the gorgeous ones in the cast of Desperate Housewives, said to Playboy mag’s offer to pose nude for them (and, of course, ‘readers’). The magazine owner Hugh Hefner had offered ?5 million to shoot all five Desperate Housewives, together for a sensational photofeature. The rest of the beautiful ladies ? Eva Longoria, Nicolette Sheridan, Marcia Cross and Felicity Huffman ? were quite keen to do the photoshoot actually, but since the mag wanted all five of them it didn’t work out when one of them backed out.

Teri Hatcher

Now, don’t go about calling poor Teri a spoilsport, a wet blanket. Not that Teri hasn’t done this ever before. She did strip for the James Bond movie, Tomorrow Never Dies, but this time the 40-year-old actress gave it some serious thought and decided it would be inappropriate. “It’s just an opportunity to see celebrities without their clothes.” (Like, she wasn’t a celeb when she did Bond?)

Teri, after the super success of the first series of Desperate Housewives, was given a 650 per cent raise and is earning ?150,000 per episode! When one is already making that kind of money, why would moolah alone lure Teri to shed it all?