New Kid on Ranbir’s Block

New Kid on Ranbir’s Block • The Lie Detector • A Happy Friendship

There was a time film stars were considered ‘cool’ if they had membership to the JW Marriott Health Club. Or owned a Porsche Cayenne. Today, if you’re a young Hindi film actress and you’re not on Ranbir Kapoor’s BlackBerry Messenger, you’re doing something wrong.

The Saawariya star who has a reputation for dating every co-star he works with (and some actresses he hasn’t even done a movie with), is rumoured to have every Bollywood heroine under the age of 30 on speed dial. At a private film party recently, at least three actresses were spotted together, giggling over jokes he’d sent them on their phones.

Meanwhile, it appears that the latest young lady the actor has taken a fancy to is Shradha Kapoor, the star of the recent dud Luv Ka The End, and daughter of Shakti and Shivangi Kapoor. Sources in Bollywood say Ranbir has been strongly recommending the actress to his producers and his advertising brands to be cast opposite him in future projects. There is some talk that Ranbir organised a meeting between Shradha and his Wake Up Sid director Ayan Mukherji recently about the possibility of casting her as the female lead in their new film together, a road-trip movie across North India.

If Shradha does land the lead in Mukherji’s film, you can be sure she’ll get a load of angry looks at the next Bollywood film party from the half-dozen hopefuls (read, Katrina Kaif, Sonam Kapoor, Deepika Padukone, Nargis Fakhri and Angela Johnson) who’ve been hungry to land that film.

Madhur Bhandarkar might think he’s the smartest guy in the room, but a little self-reflection won’t hurt. After casting Arjun Rampal as the romantic lead opposite Aishwarya Rai in his next film, Heroine, the filmmaker was hoping to land a prominent male A-lister to make a cameo in his film. He’s believed to have leaked the names of Ranbir Kapoor, Imran Khan and Prateik Babbar as hopefuls vying for the coveted role, when in fact the film’s co-producer, UTV, had allegedly failed to excite any of the three actors into signing the project.

Left with no choice and with time fast running out, Bhandarkar signed beefy plank-of-wood Arunoday Singh (of Aisha shame) for this role in Heroine, which the filmmaker has described as an honest, no-holds-barred look at the workings of the Mumbai film industry. Arunoday is reportedly set to play a struggling actor who uses the film’s superstar protagonist (played by Aishwarya) to get a foothold in the industry, before he dumps her for a younger starlet the moment he achieves a modicum of success.

Bhandarkar, now doing a volte face, insists he never approached Ranbir, Imran or Prateik for the role, and blames the media for bringing up those names and attaching them to his film, when in fact he always had his heart set on Arunoday.

Nobody’s buying his story, though. Least of all those three stars who’re apparently miffed that Bhandarkar used their names deceitfully.

Bollywood insiders are gossiping about this stunning foreigner model who’s landed a plum role in the sequel of a super-hit mindless multi-starrer. The lady has starred in two major turkeys so far, and makes for a lousy actress. Yet, she was handpicked to join the line-up of this star-studded sequel allegedly because she’s gotten ‘very close’ to the film’s director.

The model-turned-actress and the director have been spotted together at five-star hotel coffeeshops during the wee hours of the morning, and she’s believed to be a regular visitor at his Juhu apartment too. The director recently posted a cozy picture of the two of them on his BlackBerry Messenger menu, as if confirming the rumours going around.

The lady was last linked to her co-star of both previous movies, a mid-level actor with important connections. According to the grapevine, it was he who introduced her to this director, who happens to be a close friend of his. As it turns out, she was quickly cast in the director’s film—not opposite this actor (who is also part of the ensemble), but opposite a bigger male star.

On the face of it, this young lady is in a happy relationship with her Dubai-based Arab boyfriend. But industry sources say he’s just a cover.

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Rajeev Masand

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