The Year of John Abraham

The Year of John Abraham • All Work and No Play • A Sticky Date

Just days before taking off for Turkey to complete shooting for Race 2, John Abraham and Farah Khan shook hands and confirmed that he’d be taking up a role in Happy New Year alongside Shah Rukh Khan and reportedly Abhishek Bachchan too.

It’s turning out to be a good year for John, whose unlucky streak at the box-office might have ended with Housefull 2. He even hit bullseye with Vicky Donor, the first film he has produced, which not only made respectable money but has also been hailed as one of the smarter films of the year.

On the cards in the months ahead is Sanjay Gupta’s gritty Shootout at Wadala with Anil Kapoor and Kangana Ranaut, and possibly marriage too. The star has hinted in interviews that he’s likely to tie the knot later this year with girlfriend Priya Runchul. Race 2, when it checks into cinemas next year, is also likely to be a big one for John, who says he’s intentionally been picking films with directors of “mass entertainers” (that is, Sajid Khan, Abbas-Mustan and Farah Khan) so that he can reach out to larger audiences.

The film nobody seems to be talking about enthusiastically, though, is I Me Aur Main, the rom-com John shot earlier this year with Chitrangda Singh. And with good reason too. Those who’ve seen the film already say it’s hardly going to be a blockbuster, and that the actor knows it too. Apparently he’s acknowledged the fact that he’s more likely to find success in multi-hero projects than solo-starrers, and is working towards doing more ensemble comedies.

In between completing unfinished bits of his television show Satyamev Jayate and sitting on the edit of his new film Talaash, Aamir Khan is also currently training for Dhoom 3. The actor is apparently attending dialogue rehearsals for the film, which he’ll shoot in Chicago shortly. Then, in November, just weeks before the release of Talaash, he’ll start filming Rajkumar Hirani’s P.K.

It appears that Aamir has a choc-a-bloc schedule, with a second season of Satyamev Jayate pencilled in right after he wraps up Hirani’s film in the first quarter of 2013. His research team has already begun groundwork on new issues and corresponding case studies for season two.

It’s his directing career that will more than likely take a backseat again as Aamir focuses on his acting jobs and his television gig. One has learnt that Aamir has, in fact, zeroed in on a script he’s keen to direct—if he can only make the time for it. Reportedly, he’s already invested in a script about a brother-sister pair that he’s keen to bring to theatres. Like Taare Zameen Par, the protagonists of this film, one hears, will be children. But it’s highly unlikely he’ll even contemplate taking the directorial plunge again until late next year.

Amidst repeated rumours linking her to any one of her three much-older co-stars (two of them married), it appears this second-generation star has quietly gone out and found herself a boyfriend. She’s reportedly dating the divorced head of a talent-management and events company, who was himself linked to at least three actresses (each a former beauty queen, by the way) before he was married.

The young man in question is also the brother-in-law of an actor-director who is the younger sibling of an A-list superstar with whom the actress starred in her debut film. Word on the street is that the actress became friendly with her entrepreneur beau through the superstar, with whom she is again currently shooting a sequel of their earlier film.

One also hears the actress is extremely possessive of her boyfriend and flies into a rage each time someone so much as brings up the names of his ex-wife or ex-girlfriends. What’s more, common friends claim she does not approve of him hanging out with even childhood friends who happen to be girls.

Only last week, eyewitnesses say she got into a serious argument with him when he posted a picture of himself dining with his sister and her (female) friends on his BlackBerry Messenger.

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Rajeev Masand

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