Jason Lewis in the film My Bollywood Bride and (above) on the sets with co-stars Sanjay Suri and Kashmira Shah.

What did Hollywood hunk Jason Lewis do this summer when not romancing Samantha Jones (played by Kim Cattrall) in Sex and the City on the small screen across the US? He flew over to Mumbai, in pursuit of his Bollywood bride!

The model-turned-actor was busy shooting for an English film that is now ready for release here and there, across the seven seas. Featuring Sanjay Suri, Kashmira Shah, Gulshan Grover and Neha Dubey, My Bollywood Bride is the story of Alex (Lewis), an adventure novelist who meets Reena (Kashmira) while she is on a vacation in California. Torn between her feelings for Alex and her Indian family values, Reena returns home without saying goodbye. Alex decides to follow her to Mumbai and win her back, without knowing she is the Julia Roberts of India.

His experiences in the far-off land are a far cry from what Lewis is served up as the scrumptious waiter Jerry Jerrod in Sex and the City or the muscle-flexing superhero in John Woo?s He-Man and The Masters of the Universe, which he has reportedly signed.

Recalling how he zeroed in on his star, director Rajeev Virani says: ?It was a bit of a remote casting situation. With the help of our casting agent Julia Kin, we scanned headshots of a number of actors. He had to be someone who would be believable as a man chasing his dream across continents. Once we found Jason and he said yes, the film rolled fast.?

The film?s storyline, curiously, resembles the experience of its producer Brad Listermann, an American investment banker, who fell in love with actress Kashmira Shah and married the Jungle beauty. While agreeing that the film ?has many of my experiences?, Listermann insists that it is his co-writer Richard Martini (who wrote films like Can?t Hurry Love with Bridget Fonda and Three for the Road with Charlie Sheen) whose romance follows the plot more closely. ?Richard also fell in love with an Indian girl and had to come to India with only her name, and found her!?

The other Hollywood recruits in the unit were John Drake, the cameraman, and Duncan Clark, executive producer, who as ex-president of Columbia TriStar Film Distributors International, was responsible for the marketing of films like Sleepless in Seattle, A Few Good Men, Jerry Maguire and Erin Brockovich.

Kim Cattrall

Sanjay Suri, who essays the role of Bobby, an ?aspiring actor with a larger-than-life attitude to life?, is looking forward to his first Hollywood release. While emphasising that the world of Hindi movies is self-sufficient, he agrees that ?having a Hollywood actor in the lead would be a showcase window in the West for the rest of the Indian actors in the film?.

The crew had a rocking time on the sets, with the foreigners happily gorging on the daal-chicken-roti meals every day. Recalls Suri: ?Jason was extremely friendly and focused. Though I have not seen him on TV as the current series is yet to reach India, he had watched my movie Plan on his flight here and liked my acting.?

But it was watching Kashmira in Jungle that proved decisive. ?He (Lewis) was very careful as to who he was going to be cast opposite and considering that my husband is the writer and producer, he did not want to be stuck with a non-actor. So it is a huge compliment to me when he agreed to do the project after seeing my work,? says the siren.

The film has a single song playing twice, once with Neha Dubey, who plays a choreographer, and again in the final sequence with Neha and Suri on stage.

?Jason watches them but does not join. It would have been unrealistic,? Virani says. ?It was his first taste of Bollywood song and dance and he loved the experience,? Kashmira smiles.

The film will be in English with a smattering of Hindi. ?This is a Hollywood film with Bollywood as the backdrop,? clarifies Listermann.