Walking on the Croisette with Hrithik

By Utpal Borpujari in Cannes

There is a sudden squeal by a few French girls standing outside the high-profile Martinez Hotel as part of the crowd waiting for a glimpse of the stars.

They had spotted the Indian superstar Hrithik Roshan. Others waiting there, for a glimpse of Hollywood biggies, give them a surprised look, wondering who this athletic guy with a fresh designer beard and dressed in a white T and blue jeans could be.

The girls request for a photograph with him, and he readily obliges before walking on to the Croisette.

What Roshan, who is here to promote his first international film Kites, does next is something he can never do in India, or in parts of the world where there are large Indian and South Asian populations. And no, there are no beefcake bodyguards to protect him from clawing fans or any other such danger.

He starts walking on the Croisette, with Kites director Anurag Basu probably a dozen steps ahead. On the way, a few people stop him, requesting for autographs or photograpsh, and he obliges them all with a polite smile, his eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses.

But largely, he seems to be enjoying the anonymity here that allows him to take a walk on the footpaths along the Croisette.

We say a hello to him, and ask him how it feels to be able to walk so freely, without being mobbed. Probably his subconscious asking him to be reserved while talking to an Indian journalist, even if it is in Cannes and what with the increasing number of gossip of all kinds about film stars like him in the Indian media, he seems careful while having the conversation.

We walk towards the Carlton Hotel, the most high-profile hotel here, now dressed to its best and adorned with promos of upcoming big Hollywood projects, and Roshan talks about “Kites”.

“We are trying to do something at an international level, and we have given our best. Now it is up to the viewers to decide how they treat it,” he says. The film, costarring Mexican model Barbara Mori, will be released soon globally.

After a while, Hrithik decides to go back, but he is stopped by Jayson, a young Greek living amidst the Asian community in Manchester in the UK. He is carrying quite a few photographs from “Dhoom 2”, and requests Hrithik to autograph them.

“You know, I watch a lot of Bollywood films and all my friends are crazy about you. When they got to know I was visiting Cannes, they asked me to get your autograph on these if I meet you,” he tells Hrithik.

Hrithik suddenly becomes a bit nostalgic. “You know, the last time I was here at Cannes was when I was 21. I was not even an actor then, and I had come with my grandfather (J Om Prakash) who was the Film Federation of India president then,” he says, before bidding us goodbye. 

(Published in Deccan Herald, www.deccanherald.com, www.deccanheraldepaper.com, 17-05-2009)

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/2861/walking-croisette-hrithik.html

Hrithik announces his arrival in international arena, promotes ‘Kites’ at Cannes

By Utpal Borpujari in Cannes

It’s time for Hrithik Roshan, who many say has the looks to be a global filmstar, to go international.

A sizzling promo of his first international film “Kites”, directed by Anurag Basu of “Life In A Metro” and “Gangster” fame and with a separate international and domestic versions, was unveiled on the sidelines of the 62^nd Cannes Film Festival on Friday in the presence of the green-eyed superstar, his Mexican costar and supermodel Barbara Mori and Basu.

The $30-million film is expected to be released towards the end of this year, and Hrithik seems all set to make global hearts aflutter through this love story with a lot of action.

Produced by Big Pictures of Reliance Big Entertainment and Rakesh Roshan’s Film Kraft, the film is being pitched as India’s first film made for a global audiences, and not as a “crossover” film, Reliance Entertainment Pvt Ltd chairman Amit Khanna said.

Hrithik seems to have mentally prepared to go global with this film, as he spoke about how it was time for Indian mainstream cinema to become “realistic” and forego things like dance numbers “where dancers suddenly appear from nowhere”.

Yes, this film too has a scene of a dance competition to let the actor showcase his enormous dancing skills, but both he and Basu are emphatic that it is woven into the script as an authentic dance performance and not as a sudden number.

“The dance scene is not in the typical Bollywood style. It has been done more realistically. All our films are basically musicals because music is a very important part of our society and culture. But we are now realizing that it is more about being real (in cinema). Dancers appearing from nowhere in songs is getting obsolete now,” Hrithik says.

The actor plays a man born in Las Vegas falling in love with a Mexican girl played by Mori. Both, according to Basu, have shades of gray as they start believing that all their struggles in life would end if they can make lots of money.

That’s why Basu and Rakesh Roshan decided to have the film made mostly in English, with sprinkling of Spanish and Hindi. As Hrithik says, “Why would a guy born and raised in Las Vegas in love with a Mexican speak in Hindi?”

At the same time, he underscores that the film is not a verbose one. “You will understand it even if you watch it on the silent mode,” he says.

For Mori, it’s her first action role, that too in a Bollywood movie, which she never imagined she would ever get to do in her life.

But at the end of it, as Basu puts it, it is a love story between two Third World immigrants who meet in the land of opportunities, that is the United States. “And that’s where the global appeal of the movie would lie,” he says. 

(Published in Deccan Herald, www.deccanherald.com, www.deccanheraldepaper.com, 16-05-2005)