Dia Mirza

Bechaara Sunny Deol. His superhit film, Gadar, and the hit song, Main nikla gaddi leke, has landed him with yet another truck driver’s role. Now, that’s how you pay for looking and acting the part authentically. In writer-director K.C. Bokadia’s film, The Challenge, Sunny has been challenged with a ‘steering’ role. Hat ja, pare!

Kya Dia!

This is comeback time for Dia Mirza. Today, the much hyped Munna Bhai is back on the big screen with Lage Raho Munna Bhai and Dia is there, too, playing Boman Irani’s daughter. The last time we saw her in a lead role was in Alag, opposite Akshay Kapoor. Recently, she did an item number in Phir Hera Pheri. But Dia is moving ahead (finally?), so no more bit roles for her. This time she is doing a proper art-house film with the National Award winning director Manmohan Mahapatra in Bits and Pieces, opposite Rahul Bose. Her ‘close friendship’ with Sanjay Gupta also got her three films with White Feather films (Sanju’s production house) — Dus Kahaniyan, Shootout at Lokhandwala and Alibag. But that’s not all, there is more — Shyam Bajaj’s Jai Veeru opposite Fardeen Khan and Kunal Khemu, Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd, Cash, another film with Anant Mahadevan and a Bengali project with Raja Mukherjee. Phew! She’s back all right! And welcome. Kya Dia!

Brandy smooch

Rahul Bose and Mallika Sherawat

The kissing queen of Bollywood fainted while kissing! And she was kissing Rahul Bose!! Well, we didn’t know Rahul had it in him, the talent we mean, coz that must have been some kiss. Or was it just the onion in his mouth? To be able to make Mallika swoon.... But wait, we are talking about the shoot of their latest film, Pyar Ke Side Effects, and the reason for Mallika going into a swoon was just the side-effect of brandy and the cold. Actually, they were shooting a kissing scene underwater which was very, very cold (the water). And when Mallika went into a heavy shiver, she was given some brandy to warm her up. When she resumed shooting the combo effect was that she simply passed out. Or was it just for effect?

Rimmi

Rimmi? Duh? (Good question...)

Trust Rimmi to say things like these. She admits she’s terrified of the press.“I get nervous just thinking about what question the journalist will ask me next.” But can you beat this — “Sometimes I ask them for questions beforehand, so that I can prepare my answers.” Now how dumb can you get, girl? It’s okay to feel nervous and tongue-tied, even to beg for questions, but to say so just because you can’t think up anything to say is as dumb as a door. Thankfully she gets ready dialogues while acting...which too she has admitted!

 

SPOTLIGHT

Payal Rohatgi

Broke, not broken

Neither the item numbers (her latest being the Sikandar number in Corporate) nor the sleaze fests like Chetna and Men Not Allowed, not even the ad she’s done with Amitabh Bachchan has kept Payal Rohatgi from hitting rock-bottom, financially speaking. She’s forced to admit that life in Mumbai now has become extremely difficult for her and she’s paying through her nose just to stay afloat. She’s going through one of the worst phases in her career, has something around Rs 20,000 left as bank balance, no films, and even her bad luck extended to a cheque from her last show bouncing. Moreover, she’s finding it extremely difficult to get a manager for herself since people have little faith in her wanting to do good films. “It’s my reputation... People feel my wanting to do good work is just a phase and I’ll go back to doing B-grade films.” Poor Payal, she doesn’t even have money to return the SMSes and incoming STD cell calls. Don’t sweat yet, Payal, go by the Sikandar words!