Hot off the star factory

Scripts, endorsements, clothes, grooming and launching – production houses are taking complete charge of a debutant’s life, writes Tavishi Paitandy Rastogi.

In 2008, when actress Anushka Sharma made a dream debut in Aditya Chopra’s Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, the media, critics and the general public alike couldn’t believe her luck. In fact, even Anushka was surprised. A very routine audition in which she enacted the famous Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge scene that she’d seen a “million times” got her the debut most movie aspirants can only fantasise about. “It was the scene where Kajol asks her dad if she could go to Europe and realise a long-cherished dream. I didn’t think that while doing the scene, I would realise my dream too,” says Sharma.

Ranveer Singh

Ayushmann Khurana

Alia Bhatt

Arjun Kapoor

Anushka Sharma

Parineeti Chopra

Pulkit Samrat