Mexican beauty Barbara Mori is rumoured to be linked with Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan.
Cannes, May 15, 2009 —They’ve turned off the sun and turned on the drizzle in Cannes, but not enough to dim the characteristic Hrthik Roshan smile. Actually, the news is the possible emergence of a new, uncharacteristic Hrithik as an actor.
An actor renewedIn
town, briefly for announcements about his latest,
Kites, with the lovely Mexican muchacha Barbara Mori, he was caught in a one-on-one moment as the Thinking Hrithik.
“Doing this film has been the experience of my life,” he said, adding as he noted our skeptical grin, “And that’s not just PR for box office.”
He had a lot to say, in a single take: “In Indian films, and our acting, we’re stuck in stereotypes and don’t know it. I had to do Kites to realise that. We live in a closed box and are convinced we are right. But we are not. Watching Barbara and others, I saw numerous other and far better ways of doing things, saying a line. I’m not going to be the same actor again.”
In the cynical fraternity that watched a press conference he gave, many journos felt, as one of them said, “Here’s perhaps the only guy on the Indian scene who has what it takes to be a global star.”
Kites is a Rakesh Roshan-produced, Anurag Basu-directed story shot in Las Vegas, Mexico and elsewhere in the USA. It’s about two lost ones who find each other, agree that money is all, discover love and that they were wrong about the cash.
Last evening, the Cannes Red Carpet was reserved for Andrea Arnold’s much anticipated Fish Tank. Arnold’s Red Road won the Cannes Jury Prize in 2006 winner and she also bagged an Oscar for her short film,Wasp.
Few were disappointed, many stayed to applaud, even at public showings in the cavernous Grand Theatre Lumiere (a 3,000 seater).
Prize possibilities
It’s a grungy tale of a grungy 15-year-old — the camera rarely leaves a tremendous performance from young Katie Jarvis playing Mia— who lives through a dreadful and pathetic Mum, her boyfriend who comes and goes and beds Mia, an audition she walks out of, an attempted crime, all without Arnold taking a false step or ceasing to enrapture the eye.
Our first Palme d’Or and / or Best Actress possibilities so far? There are still ten days of nails to bite.