SPLASH! Charlize Theron

This Sunday evening she is coming to your small screen to take your breath away. Charlize Theron, one of People magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People in the World, takes the hot seat on Inside the Actor’s Studio this Sunday, 7 pm on Sony’s English movie channel PIX.

Theron, who grew up on a farm outside Benoni in South Africa, was trained as a ballet dancer. Much before she became one of the biggest names in Hollywood, her first role was as a young mother in a park in a B-film in 1995. The non-speaking role lasted all of three seconds on screen.

But Theron went on to star blockbusters like The Devil’s Advocate, Mighty Joe Young, The Italian Job, The Cider House Rules before clinching the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Monster.

This Sunday, the South African beauty gives you a sneak peek into many unknown facts of her life. A few nuggets: Theron only knew Afrikaans and she learnt English by watching soap operas on TV; one of the first movies she ever went to see at the theatre was Splash and after watching the movie, she felt jealous of Daryl Hannah and had a crush on Tom Hanks.

The ultimate compliment comes from director Woody Allen. “Charlize is a force of nature. She’s bright, beautiful with crushing sex appeal and she can not only act, but also do comedy.”

Yatra on tour

Festival folk: Rekha, Nana Patekar and Deepti Naval in Yatra

Goutam Ghose’s Yatra is the only Indian official entry at the Montreal World Film Festival being held from August 24 to September 4. The film starring Rekha, Nana Patekar, Deepti Naval and Nakul Vaid, will be screened on September 3 and 4 at the festival as part of the competitive section.

“It’s good for the producers. The film is being screened in the competitive section. There have been enquiries from some American producers as there is a good market for Indian films in North America... I will attend the festival. Rekha and Nana will also go,” said Ghose from Mumbai.

Slated for an October release in India, Yatra will also be screened at the Sundance Film Festival in Los Angeles in January next year. The film has been produced by Bipin Vohra’s SPS Arts & Entertainment which had made Aparna Sen’s 15 Park Avenue.

Yatra is the story of a writer (Nana Patekar) whose award-winning literary work revolves around a tawaif named Lajwanti, played by Rekha. Nakul Vaid stars as a film-maker who journeys with Nana to unravel the real woman from the pages of fiction that span the 1930s to the 1960s.

The film also stars Deepti Naval as Nana’s wife and Bharati Devi as his mother, Telugu hero Jeeva as Rekha’s husband, and Ghose’s daughter Anandi and Romit Raj as Nana-Deepti’s children.

Yatra was mostly shot at the Ramoji Rao Film City in Hyderabad, with some patchwork in Calcutta and Delhi. The film boasts music by Khayyam and a number of tracks by Asha Bhonsle.

After the break

She may have tied the knot and got busy managing her home, but Rachana Banerjee has definitely not bid goodbye to the big screen. “Marriage has not influenced my career in any way. I’m now trying to balance both my personal and professional lives,” she smiles.

Back after a short break from the arclights, the lady has bagged two films — an Indo-Bangladesh venture called Biyer Lagna and Haranath Chakraborty’s film with Mithun Chakraborty. Biyer Lagna, written and directed by Bangladeshi director F.I. Manik, is a family drama where Rachana plays heroine to Firdaus. “I have been taking it a little slow and waiting for the right kind of offers. I am a little bored of the same old routine — singing, dancing and running around trees,” says Rachana, shuttling between Calcutta and Bangladesh to shoot for the film that also stars Tapas Pal and Satabdi Roy.

The Haranath Chakraborty blockbuster, still untitled, will be shot in Mysore. The film revolves around Mithun who fights against the evils of society, while Rachana plays his love interest.

Once through with her filmi commitments, the actress will get ready to breeze through Bengal for live musical shows over the next four months. “I want to continue doing these shows that I started four years ago as they have slowly become very popular,” says Rachana.