If you remember last year, there was this battle of words that went through a director and a producer via blind items. They were fighting about their choice of lead actor for that remake they were doing. The remake was the director’s baby so he felt very strong about who he wanted to be cast as his leading man in the Hindi version. While he had his eyes set on this actor who’s both fit and looks young for his age, his producer wanted another actor who is not really known for his fitness and he’s been having a bad run at the box office.

Words were exchanged, really mean words, and by now you know how this director is like so rude and mean are right there as part of his character. He called the actor “too fat” to be in the remake and ultimately the director won the battle when the actor himself said he didn’t want to do it. He was a bit humiliated all this was made public.

So now, as per this blind item, in this actor’s last film he was asked to lose weight. Naturally since he is playing a warrior, he cannot look unfit. There were so reports on how he was exercising and getting fit for this role. But the director of this film did something smart here, he made it clear that he wanted the actor to achieve a particular target as far as his weight is concerned.

This actor talks a lot about how he struggled and did not have it easy. Well, if this was some other actor with a non-film family surname, he would not have gotten to play the lead of a big-budget film despite looking unfit and mismatched to play the part. Also, he keeps getting films despite delivering flop after flop. Somewhere Bhavesh Joshi is looking at this and scratching his hairy face wondering, “How?”. Speaking of which, did you know this actor was chosen to be in an item song that was supposed to promote that film? Like if he has that kind of audience!

Check out the blind item from Rajeev Masand. Wonder what is keeping this actor from staying fit? On one hand, his other half thinks she looks better without a rib and this one….Doesn’t it seem like he is becoming his dad?

Bollywood Blind Item

Clause Act

Rumour goes that the director-producer of a recent film had a clause included in his contract with the leading man of his film that the filmmaker had the right to forfeit a percentage of the actor’s fee if he didn’t hit an agreed upon body weight before shooting on the project commenced.

It’s a fairly standard practice in Hollywood, but here in Bollywood, which is still mostly a ‘relationship driven’ industry simply because of its comparatively intimate size, such clauses can be awkward.

According to the grapevine, the filmmaker did in fact enforce the clause when it was clear that the actor had not reached the agreed weight. It reportedly became a cause of great friction between the two, but both put up a professional front and fake-smiled their way while promoting the film together.

OSOP Guesses

Director-Producer: Ashutosh Gowariker

Actor: Arjun Kapoor

Film: Panipat