Amol Parashar: Theatre easiest medium for exploration. (Photo: amolparashar/Instagram)
Amol Parashar: Theatre easiest medium for exploration. (Photo: amolparashar/Instagram)
Actor Amol Parashar, who rose to fame with his character Chitvan Sharma in TVF Tripling, and is currently being seen in film ‘Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare’, has also featured in the lead role in the televised play ‘Panchi Aise Aate Hai’ on Tata Sky Theatre, which is celebrating Marathi playwright Vijay Tendulkar’s contribution to theatre…Amol speaks with Siddhi Jain.
Sharing his thoughts on theatre, Amol shared that for exploration purposes, “theatre is the easiest and most convenient medium for an actor”.
“When working on a text, or when working on a theatrical production, the process gives you ample time and space to experiment and ‘play’ around. You can keep working on a performance or refining it as you do more and more shows of the same production. Thanks to the beauty of imagination in theatre, you can also deal with characters and themes that are far away from you physically. Film doesn’t offer you the same freedoms, at least not to the same extent,” he told IANSlife in an email.
Asked about theatre as a tool for social change and a mirror of society, Amol, 29, feels that theatre performance and watching is a much more personal experience. “You can dabble in unique and radical ideas and still find acceptance. The constraints of commerce don’t come in the way of theatre as much as they do with other forms of storytelling. That makes it a much more effective tool to drive through social change and new ideas.”
The young, promising actor also shared his perspective on Vijay Tendulkar’s contribution to Marathi theatre.
“Vijay Tendulkar is a legendary name and I am too small a fry to even have an opinion on his contribution. He had a voice of his own, and a strong one at that, taking up social and political events of his time and depicting them in his work. His plays are read, performed and analysed in a multiple languages in India and outside. There’s no doubt that he is one of the most influential playwrights of our country.”
Actor Amol Parashar. (File Photo: IANS)
Amol has dabbled in multiple mediums and genres, and says that it is a process to delve deeper into his craft and also himself as a human being. “I would like to be grow my skillset to a point where I should feel like nothing is unachievable.”
Finally, sharing his thoughts on theatre’s new televised avatar that he’s now featuring in, the actor shared that, “Every art form and medium goes through a process of evolution. With new technology at our disposal, it is our duty to experiment and see if we can come up with newer and newer ways to reach the audience. It is a great initiative by Tata Sky to this purpose, especially because classic texts and playwrights are being made accessible to a large audience. These texts would otherwise just become an archive in a library. It’s invigorating to see them being packaged in a certain way and made accessible to the large audience that Tata Sky enjoys.”
Sayani Gupta: Skewed representation of women in cinema. (Photo: sayanigupta/Instagram)
Sayani Gupta: Skewed representation of women in cinema. (Photo: sayanigupta/Instagram)
‘Four More Shots Please’ actress Sayani Gupta feels that portrayal of women in the Hindi mainstream cinema is moving in the right direction, thanks to more women storytellers coming to the forefront and bringing with them a “female gaze” that counters a “male gaze” prevalent for the longest time…Sayani speaks with Siddhi Jain.
Sayani, 34, is known for the strong roles she plays. She made her feature film debut in 2012 in ‘Second Marriage Dot Com’ and has appeared in supporting roles in films such as ‘Fan’, ‘Jolly LLB 2’ and ‘Article 15’. Her latest web series, which was a popular success, has recently been nominated at the International Emmy Awards.
Asked about the critique of how women are portrayed in the mainstream cinema, and if she finds it changing at all, Sayani tells IANSlife: “It is, and it should be critiqued, especially in Bollywood and in Hindi mainstream cinema. It’s extremely problematic, you don’t have representation of all kinds of woman. It’s only a very skewed version of what a woman should be, and what she’s doing.”
She adds: “Often she doesn’t have a valid agency of her own life, and often decisions are being made for her. Her only motto in life is to make the hero happy or romance the hero or wait for the hero to save her from the villain, and so on and so forth. Of course it’s changing, it’s moving in the right direction and that’s only because there are many more women story tellers who are coming in the forefront — the women directors, technicians, cinematographers. When you have women telling their own stories, then it makes a huge difference in terms of what woman gaze is. For the longest time, the gaze has been extremely male and that needs to change. Of course it’s changing for better, but we have a long, long way to go. Until we change our society, how we think, how we look at the girls, how we bring up our children – the girl child and the boy child, it’s not going to change much.”
Sayani is hosting a virtual acting workshop on ‘Getting into Character’ in the series ‘Femmes in Film’ by Bumble and India Film Project, on Saturday, October 3. Developed exclusively for the Bumble Community, ‘Femmes in Film’ is a series of virtual workshops to be hosted by women artistes including Sayani, Aranya Johar, Kanika Dhillon and Anjali Menon. These weekly workshops will focus on acting, screenwriting, storytelling, and filmmaking.
Sayani Gupta to conduct a virtual masterclass.
Calling ‘Femmes in Film’ a great initiative, Sayani gives a sneak peak into her workshop. “It’s a workshop that I’m taking on acting and approaching characters, building characters. It is something that we do as actors very regularly, everyday. It is something that I’m more than happy to be sharing with the Bumble community and whoever is attending the workshop. It’s something I’m really passionate about and I hope that I’m able to impart something or at least share something of interest and value to whoever is attending the workshop, I would hope so. As a concept of what IFP and Bumble are doing, is really brilliant. You need more and more woman creators, filmmakers, storytellers, actors, writers, comedians to come at the forefront and share their story, share their process. It is also very interesting because we need to amplify the voices that need to be heard more, especially today.”
Stories by women, or stories featuring strong women leads, are often put in the box. Does she agree? Sayani answers in an affirmative.
“Of course, they are put in a box. We have to try to break those moulds and break those stereotypes. I don’t think a movie written or directed by a women has to be essentially ‘female centric’. That’s a problem in itself, when you make movie with a male protagonist, it’s not called ‘male centric’ but when there is a female protagonist it’s called ‘female centric’. Why? These are universal stories, these are stories about people. Why this gender demarcation and putting different genders in different boxes? That’s not necessary, and that’s extremely problematic. That I feel is something one needs to do away with but that’s not going to happen overnight.”
Asked what is the one thing she thinks is not taught enough in cinema education, but should be, Sayani, who is graduate from the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) – one of India’s top film schools, points to the ability to monetize one’s creative passions.
“One thing that FTII doesn’t teach you is to go out there and look at commerce and project yourself as a commercial creator. How to make money, basically, and how to sell. Because there are lot of brilliant people who come out of FTII and they’re often struggling with how to really marry the two — creativity and commerce. That is something that I wish somebody taught us but nobody did. (Laughs) We are obviously left to ourselves to fend for ourselves, as it happens in most art schools. So, how to monetise because filmmaking is an extremely expensive medium – it’s business, after all – one needs to understand all of that, so that needs a little more focus.
Coming back to the basics, she also feels the need to teach better writing. “I think the first is to write better, to write better characters, to write better women characters, to write with all kinds of representation – be it women, be it the marginalized of the population, be it the trans community, be it the LGBTQ+ community. There needs to be more unapologetic representation in our cinema, so I think writing is something that needs to be given more importance.”
Actress Sayani Gupta is set to co-produce “Where the Wind Blows”, a film which will feature her as the only protagonist. It’s been directed by Karma Takapa, whose films “Ralang Road” and “Mor Mann Ke Bharam” have travelled to various festivals.
According to Samarpita Samaddar, Bumble India PR Director, Sayani is an incredible artiste whose session will be focused on acting and how to approach characters in cinema. “The weekly series, Femmes in Film, will focus on acting, screenwriting, storytelling, and filmmaking. We look forward to kicking off the series with Sayani Gupta on October 3,” she shared.
Other discussions in the series are: ‘Pitch perfect poetry’ by Aranya Johar (October 10), ‘The art of character development’ by Kanika Dhillon (October 17), and ‘Things they don’t teach you at film school” by Anjali Menon (October 24). The workshops are free to attend. To attend the workshop, one can download Bumble, match with the India Film Project profile on the Date, Bizz or BFF modes and apply to book a spot.
Mumbai: Actress Tamannah Bhatia at the shoot of celebrity make-up artist Lekha Gupta's Amazon Beauty Vanity Diaries show in Mumbai, on June 25, 2019. (Photo: IANS)
Tamannaah Bhatia
Tamannaah Bhatia, who recently tested Covd positive, has been discharged from the local hospital she was admitted to. The actress will live in isolation as advised by doctors.
Tamannaah issued a statement with the health update on her verified Twitter account on Monday evening.
The statement reads: “Although my team and I have been very disciplined on set, I unfortunately succumbed to a mild fever last week. After undertaking the mandatory tests, I was diagnosed as COVID- 19 positive. I admitted myself into a private hospital in Hyderabad to mitigate adverse health outcomes and after being under the care of expert medical professionals I am now being discharged. It has been a strenuous week but I feel relatively well. I am optimistic that I will recover fully from this health peril which is distressing so many people around the world. For the present, I will be self-isolating as advised. A big virtual hug to everyone for their love, concern and positivity. Stay safe, stay healthy, stay well.”
Mumbai: Actress Tamannah Bhatia at the shoot of celebrity make-up artist Lekha Gupta’s Amazon Beauty Vanity Diaries show in Mumbai (Photo: IANS)
In August, Tamannaah’s parents had tested positive for the novel coronavirus. The actress had informed fans of the development with a tweet posted on August 26. “My parents were showing mild COVID 19 symptoms over the weekend and as a precautionary measure everyone at home underwent test immediately. The results have come in, unfortunately, my parents have tested positive. The necessary authorities have been updated of their situation and we are complying with the precautionary guidelines. The rest of the family members, including myself and the staff have tested negative. By the Grace of God they are coping well and all your prayers and blessings will put them on the road to recovery,” she had written.
The actress will next be seen in the Telugu remake of the Hindi thriller film “Andhadhun”, besides the Hindi film “Bole Chudiyan” co-starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui.
New Delhi: Actress Kirti Kulhari during a press conference to promote her upcoming film "Indu Sarkar" in New Delhi on July 25, 2017. (Photo: IANS)
Kirti Kulhari reminds of the perks of exercising
Actress Kirti Kulhari reiterates the importance of exercising and health in life, in her latest social media post.
A new Instagram video captures Kirti doing pushups. She also shared a picture where she poses next to dumbbells.
“#howsthejosh to make exercising (any form, any kind) an integral part of your lifestyle, is one of the toughest things to do in life… But I also know, once you do, it changes the GAME for you… looking good is just a byproduct of it… it takes care of so many things at so many levels for you..” Kirti wrote alongside the image.
She added: “You feel good, your health is boosted like never before, your self-esteem goes up, your confidence builds in a solid way, your will power increases, your stress levels go down, your BELIEF in yourself goes up, and of course you look your BEST and when you start experiencing all of this, you know that no matter ‘what’s going on in my life’ this is going to STAY and with each such decision, all that I mentioned above keeps happening to you more and more.”
Kirti Kulhari starts reading Bhagavad Gita.
Kirti urged that health is wealth.
“One thing I have come to realise HEALTH (mental, physical, emotional, spiritual) is truly the only WEALTH you actually need in LIFE and everything else just becomes so much easier… #happysaturday everyone,” she wrote.
Kirti currently looks forward to the release of the films, “The Girl on the Train” and “Shaadistan”.
Actress Ileana DCruz has made a candid confession on social media, with a monochrome picture she posted on Instagram where she strikes a pose in bikini…reports Asian Lite News.
Alongside the image, she wrote: “I’ve always worried about how I looked. I’ve worried my hips are too wide, my thighs too wobbly, my waist not narrow enough, my tummy not flat enough, my boobs not big enough, my butt too big, my arms too jiggly, nose not straight enough, lips not full enough… I’ve worried that I’m not tall enough, not pretty enough, not funny enough, not smart enough, not ‘perfect’ enough.”
She tagged herself as “beautifully flawed”.
“Not realising I was never meant to be perfect. I was meant to be beautifully flawed. Different. Quirky. Unique. Every scar, every bump, every ‘flaw’ just made me, me. My own kind of beautiful,” she said.
Ileana said that she has stopped trying to fit in.
Ileana D’Cruz professes self love
“That’s why I’ve stopped. Stopped trying to conform to the world’s ideals of what’s meant to be beautiful. I’ve stopped trying so hard to fit in. Why should I?? When I was born to stand out,” she said.
This is not the first time Ileana has spoken about self-love. Recently, she urged everyone to make themselves their priority number one.
Ileana was last seen on screen in the 2019 multistarrer “Pagalpanti”, directed by Anees Bazmee.
She will next be seen in Ajay Devgn’s production, “The Big Bull”, a film reportedly based on India’s biggest securities scam of 1992. The film also stars Abhishek Bachchan.
