AMRITA RAO MAKES A CAMEO IN SHAURYA

"How did this get out? It was meant to be a surprise!" This is how the Shaurya director, Samar Khan, reacts when being asked about Amrita Rao's presence in the cast of his second directorial venture.

"Amrita Rao is indeed in my film. Just how it happened is an interesting story. I didn't intend to cast her. But she's a dear friend, and wanted to be part of my film. So, I cast her in a very special role. I guess I'm blessed to have so many friends in the industry," says the journalist-turned-director.

Samar is all praise for Amrita's professionalism. "We were supposed to shoot only for a day. But that stretched into two days. Amrita gave the time without any complaint. Then she wasn't happy with her dubbing. So, she did the dubbing again. I love how focused she was even in her cameo. And not just Amrita. I had a dream cast in Shaurya; Rahul Bose, Kay Kay Menon, Deepak Dobriyal and Minissha Lamba…they all went out of their way to make sure Shaurya turns out to be a special film."

PRIYANKA CHOPRA - HARMAN BAWEJA SPLIT???

Priyanka Chopra and Harman Baweja claim that they are only friends and are not dating each other. However sources claim that both of them were dating earlier for a while and seem to keep going on the on-off track with their courtship. When Harman�s soon to be debut film Lovestory 2050 was in trouble as there was no leading lady, it was Priyanka Chopra who volunteered to do the film. According to sources now that both Priyanka and Harman are working together closely, they have again come close to each other. However all is definitely not well with their relationship it seems as the two of them recently had a showdown outside Harman�s home. Priyanka was seen ranting and raving and finally even succumbed to tears after the showdown.

Priyanka and Harman were returning from a night out in her car, when they probably had a huge argument. As soon as the car pulled up outside Harman�s home he got out of the car and Priyanka followed suit. The usually calm Priyanka was hysterical and began to yell and scream at Harman outside his home. Not wanting to create a scene late at night Harman just headed towards his house, this infuriated Priyanka even more and she continued to yell at him. Sources claim Harman even cautioned her saying �Don�t create a scene outside my house, you will get into trouble.� A friend of the couple who was in the car also stepped out and tried to make Priyanka see reason, but she was in no mood and continued to get hysterical. Finally Harman took Priyanka into his home and perhaps tried to calm her down. After a while the two emerged from his house, but Priyanka was in tears and sobbing profusely.

The two then went their own way in their respective cars. However it seems that the story didn�t end there, but a few days later Priyanka was again spotted outside Harman�s home quite late at night, banging on his door. Priyanka was once again hysterical but this time she was sobbing and apologetic for her rude behaviour the other day. She kept banging on the door which disturbed quite a few other neighbours. However Harman feigned complete ignorance about any such incident and still claims that the two of them are �just friends�. Although Priyanka was seen in some big films like Krrish and Don last year, she was severely criticized for her performance in them. Well the lady definitely seems to be going through a rough patch both professionally and personally.

SHAH RUKH KHAN in KRAZZY 4 [fantastic dancer]

An item song by Shah Rukh Khan.. well all I can say is that he is a fantastic dancer, with tons of energy. And it all started because of Hrithik’s knee injury.

Post the shooting of his last film, Hrithik was nursing a injury to his knee that required physiotherapy. I wanted Hrithik to do the item song, but he kept on pushing the shooting date as his doctor had insisted on no physical activity to give the knee time to heal. Finally I had a word with him. I said, “Either we delay the release of the film or shoot with another actor”.

Hrithik did not want the film to be delayed, so he asked me to rope in another actor. We at once thought of Shah Rukh Khan. Shah Rukh and I go back to Koyla and Karan Arjun . We don’t live in each other’s pocket nor do we party together, but we share a lot of warmth and affection.

I went to meet him at Mannat, Shah Rukh’s house and told him about my predicament. Shah Rukh gave me his assent without any hesitation. He said, “I am free to do it anytime you want me as I have no pending work”.

A lot of attention was given to Shah Rukh’s looks and styling. The designer who worked on Hrithik’s look for Dhoom 2 , Anahita Shroff was roped in. She first heard the song and decided on two changes. The first look is very basic with a white shirt and black trouser, but a black designer holster has added sophistication in big dollops. In the next change, he gave him a red and black combination.

Shah Rukh shot with me from the 16th of Jan to the 20th of Jan at the Yash Raj Studios. Choreographer Ahmed Khan has made him dance like never before. Hrithik was present on the first day, he had to be as he is the co-producer of the film, but thereafter he flew to Singapore for his treatment.

After the song was done, Shah Rukh very humbly said, “I have given my best shot, but I think Hrithik will do more justice to it”. This is something that I did not agree with because according to me Shah Rukh has done full justice to it in his own style.

EMRAAN HASHMI to STAR in WARNER BROS

Emraan Hashmi moves out of the Bhatt fold temporarily for a film that brings Hollywood's Warner Bros to Indian shores for the second time. Their first project in Hindi is Nikhil Advani's Chandni Chowk To China.

The second venture sees Warner tying up with Tandav films, of Khosla Ka Ghosla, for a study of intimate human relationships set in Delhi. And Emraan Hashmi gets a total makeover of look image and personality for the part. Finally, after playing the serial kisser in a series of Bhatt films, Emraan is ready to play a fully mature married man with kids.

And the producers, not convinced that Emraan could carry off the mellow mature look, are giving him a complete makeover. Emraan admits sheepishly that he is going into a totally different zone this time. He also admits that his attempts to go beyond the Bhatt family fold haven't been so successful. "I did The Train which wasn't by the Bhatts and where I played a married man. So, it isn't as if I haven't played a married man with a family before. I agree such attempts haven't been so successful for me. Films where I've a streak of mystery and mischief are more liked. I haven't been appreciated in my mature roles like Awaarapan. With my new film I hope to rectify that. When writer Jaideep Sahni narrated it to me I immediately wanted to do it. It takes me into areas and emotions I haven't covered before."

The untitled film being produced by Savita Raj of Tandav Filmswho produced last year's sleeper hit Khosla Ka Ghosla, also finds the writer Jaideep Sahni moving out of his comfort zone. Jaideep who wrote the two inspirational films Chak De India and Aaja Nachle for Yashraj Films is looking forward to the challenge of writing a film that takes him into a different zone. "This is a commitment from the time I did Khosla Ka Ghosla for Tandav Films. They took two stories from me. This is the second one," says Sahni.

Emraan Hashmi will be spending this summer in Delhi shooting this very unusual film directed by Joy Augustine who made his directorial debut with AB Corp Ltd's Tere Mere Sapne and has just completed a film based on the Mumbai train blasts for Sunil Shetty's Popcorn Entertainment.

ANAMIKA CHOUDHURY - THE BEST CHILD -

SaReGaMaPa L'il Champs 2007 finally ended their second successful season with a Grand show. Lil Champ's contest has found its Champ and the winner of this season’s of SaReGaMaPa International L'il Champ is none other than Anamika Chaudhury, contestant from Mariani Assam. Rohanpreet is the first runner-up, while Tanmay came third.

The Grand Finale was made extra special with lot of grandiose and great performances and dazzling stars from musical and tellyworld. Lot of legendary figures from the Bollywood Music fraternity like Anand Bakshi, Pinaaz Massani, made it to the show. Past SaReGaMaPa show contestants, Debojit, Sumedha, Aishwarya, Mauli Dave and many others were also there as special guests. Both the Guru’s Sonu Nigam and Suresh Wadekarji came up with some brilliant performances along with the mind-blowing numbers from all the top ten contestants.
The stage was set alive with memorable performances by Smriti Irani, Rajshree Thakur and Divyanka Tripathy. Amir Hafeez's absence was conspicuous. Aditya made sure to give some awesome performance and take everyone’s breath away. Even the three finalists of L'il Champ 2006 were there to welcome the new L'il Champs of SaReGaMaPa and gave some fabulous performances.

Ajay Devgan and Kajol werethe special celebrity guests. The couple also declared the International votes where it was Rohanpreet who got the highest. India votes showed Anamika to be leading in almost all the zones.

Anamika walks home with a huge amount of Rs. 20 lakhs in cash prize and a Hyundai car. She was thrilled to accept the award from CEO, Zee Entertainment Ltd, Pradeep Guha.

With this, Zee completes yet another successful series. A big applause for Anamika and both the runners-up, Rohanpreet and Tanmay Chaturvedi!!