In Sickness and in Health

Ranveer Singh is one happy chipper. Even when the chips are down. The actor recently underwent surgery for a shoulder injury he suffered while filming Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Bajirao Mastani recently. Typically, he appeared cheery while being wheeled away into the OT…we know this from the photograph he tweeted of himself being led into surgery!

He happily posed for shutterbugs outside the hospital when he was discharged last weekend, although girlfriend Deepika Padukone, who was reportedly by his side all morning, allegedly snuck out through a back exit. Ranveer will likely be out of action for a month or so, and while that may upset Bhansali’s schedule a little, insiders reveal the actor was anyway expected to take a break from Bajirao Mastani around this time so he could help promote Zoya Akhtar’s Dil Dhadakne Do, which opens in June.

Allo, Allo

Abhishek Bachchan, who took off for Dubai earlier this week to begin filming Hera Pheri 3, will likely have a special guest visit him on the sets in the days ahead. A loyal fan of the actor, named Gabriella, who lives in Dubai, has been invited to drop in to watch junior Bachchan shoot while he’s there.

On April Fool’s Day last week, AB Jr prank-called Gabriella from Mumbai pretending to be a member of his own digital team. He claimed that ‘Mr Bachchan’ was not very pleased with the sketches she’d been making of him recently. “He’s asked us to tell you to please stop making sketches of him because he didn’t like some of the new ones,” the actor fibbed to her, even as the poor lady’s voice went silent on the other side. After a few minutes of this charade, he put on his real voice again and told her he’d been fooling her all along. Evidently relieved, Gabriella confessed she was on the verge of bursting into tears as the gentleman on the other line pulled her up for her well-intentioned sketches.

Bachchan quickly comforted her, insisting that he enjoyed receiving her doodles. He also declared, a tad pompously, that he was going to start following her on Twitter from here on, “so that you can send me your sketches directly”. To make up for the prank, he said he’d have “my people get in touch with you” and make sure that she visits the set in Dubai “where you can watch me shoot and take all the pictures you want”. Needless to say, Gabriella was ecstatic.

The entire video of this conversation was posted on the actor’s Facebook fan page, which is managed by his overactive digital team. Scroll a little lower and you’ll find some of Gabriella’s sketches too. They’re not half bad. Honest.

Producer’s Surplus

An up-and-coming actor who finally scored a surprise hit after a particularly unlucky spell at the box-office, is reportedly directing all writers and filmmakers with promising scripts to the big-shot banner that recently revived his flagging career. Word on the street is that the actor doesn’t want to take any more chances with his career, and is no mood to work with new producers or banners that he isn’t familiar or comfortable with.

Back on the wish list of directors and screenwriters peddling unusual but interesting script ideas, the actor has apparently been referring the best ones to his favourite studio. He’s offering to commit to those projects if the directors and writers are able to get the reclusive studio boss to commit to producing them.

At least two directors came to him recently with material he was interested in, but with producers already attached. The actor is believed to have advised them to ditch their partners, and in exchange for that, he is supposed to have volunteered to get them face-time with the studio mogul. It seems that didn’t go down well with one director, who has his project set up with his longtime producer. Turns out the director made it clear to the actor—in no uncertain terms—that he was making an unfair demand of him. And that the director was approaching him strictly for a role, and that he wouldn’t so much as consider dumping his producing partner lured by the promise of landing a more prominent backer.

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Rajeev Masand

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