After the brilliant Jab We Met, Shahid Kapur hopes to give us another good film, Kismat Konnection, this Friday.

Nithya Ramani spoke to the actor, and asked him to shed light on his new film, directed by Aziz Mirza and co-starring Vidya Balan.

What is Kismet Konnection about?

It is a romantic comedy, similar to what you would expect of an Aziz Mirza film. In all his films, his protagonists always represent the common man. The characters are never too heavy, or senseless.

I play Raj, a struggling architect. Everybody thinks that he will make it big one day but it has been five years, and nothing much has happened yet. The character is very different than the one I played in Jab We Met, where I was very silent.

Do you believe in kismat?

Yes, I believe that there is another force that inspects our life. Like hard work and effort, fate plays a vital role in everyone’s life. People should know how to recognise an opportunity and grab it.

This is your first film with Vidya Balan. How has the experience been?

She is a wonderful actress, very simple and easy to get along. It becomes very easy if the actors get along well with each other. Initially, everyone was worried about how we would break the ice. But she made it very simple. She came up to me and asked for my autograph on the first day of the shooting. All of us started laughing.

Popular Bollywood actress Vidya Balan has walked out of a David Dhawan film because of fellow lead actor John Abraham.

Says a source close to Vidya, “Vidya is not doing UTV’s Hook Ya Crook. Vidya felt that after Salaam-E-Ishq, she and John needed to do a film which had substantial roles for both. She had reservations as Dhawan’s heroines don’t have much to do except sing, dance and look glamorous. She voiced her concern to the director who promised to make changes in her role. Vidya wants to do more women-oriented roles.”

The source adds, “Vidya doesn’t want to protest too much as she doesn’t want to upset David, so she has quietly opted out though the producer and David are insisting that Vidya is still doing it.”

A spokesperson for Vidya says, “Vidya is not doing the film but it’s because she doesn’t have the dates.”

Vidya Balan ditched Sooraj Barjatya at the last minute. This may sound shocking but it is actually true! Rajshri roductions’ Ek Vivah Aisa Bhi was to star Vidya Balan in the lead opposite Bobby Deol originally.
But now the November 7th releasing film has Eesha Koppikar along with Sonu Sood playing the main lead. So what went wrong?
Our sources revealed, “Sooraj Barjatya had approached Bobby Deol and Vidya Balan for his written film Ek Vivah Aisa Bhi being directed by debutante Kaushik Ghatak. They both had given their consent for the film.
But then though Bobby initially found the family oriented subject appealing, as the days progressed he developed cold feet. He excused himself out of the film citing dates problem. Sooraj had hoped that he would find a suitable actor in the A list to play the romantic lead opposite Vidya. But as that didn’t look to materialise, Vidya chickened out of the project preferring to do Kismat Konection along with Shahid.

Sooraj was then left with no option but to rope in small names like Eesha Koppikar and Sonu Sood to stop the film getting stalled even before it was about to be shot!”It looks a remote possibility that Sooraj Barjatya will now ever approach either Vidya Balan or Bobby Deol to star in any of his Rajshri banner films!

After Bipasha Basu suddenly left Kashmir while shooting for Lamhaa, producer Bunty Walia and director Rahul Dholakia are having second thoughts about her being the film’s lead actress. Whether Bipasha will remain a part of Lamhaa or not will be decided after she has a meeting with Bunty and Rahul today.

Meanwhile, Bunty and Rahul are already looking at options to replace Bipasha if she dies not agree to travel to Kashmir for a shooting schedule in January. One of the strongest contenders to step into Bipasha’s shoes is Vidya Balan.

On Monday, Rahul drove down to Wai to meet Vidya and ask if she would be willing to replace Bipasha in Lamhaa.

A couple of weeks ago Bipasha had left the film’s shooting mid-way and had flown down from Kashmir to Mumbai leaving Rahul, Bunty and Sanjay Dutt stranded. The cast and crew of Lamhaa were shooting a sequence at Anantnag, which is 55 kms away from Srinagar.

Rumour has it that Bipasha received a call after which she was very distressed. Suddenly she stalled the shoot and went inside her van. She then called up Rahul from inside and told him that she was returning to the hotel. Rahul followed Bipasha’s van and reached the hotel to have a talk with her.

However, he was shocked to see Bipasha packing her bags and heading to the airport. Rahul tried to stop her but Bipasha shot back saying, “You won’t understand Rahul, you’re not a woman.”

An industry insider said, “In January, Bunty and Rahul need to shoot for 10 days in Kashmir. If Bipasha doesn’t comply, she can’t be a part of the film.”

When contacted, Bunty said, “We need to shoot in Kashmir for 10 days. I will start the shoot from January 4. I need Bipasha there. I have been made to understand by her and her manager that she is averse to going back to Kashmir. But I think I will convince her to do so. I am optimistic.”

Rahul said, “I need Bipasha in Kashmir. I am meeting her for the same today.”

When asked if Bipasha would still remain a part of Lamhaa even if she didn’t agree to go to Kashmir, Rahul said, “I will cross the bridge when I come to it.”

A friend of Bunty added, “Bipasha behaved extremely unprofessionally by leaving the shoot mid-way without informing Bunty and Sanjay. The reasons for her strange behaviour are not known.”

Despite repeated calls and text messages, Bipasha remained unavailable for comment.

Vidya Balan might be linked to every other co-star but she claims to be still single.After her first big film ‘Parineeta’, there were talks of her closeness with co-star Sanjay Dutt.
Then she was romantically linked to ‘Salaam-E-Ishq’ co-star John Abraham. During ‘Kismat Connection’ there were talks of her connection to Shahid Kapoor though many made fun of how she looked much older than him on screen.
She denied all that outright and said in a TV interview that if she actually was linked with all her co-stars then she should be a person to wear her heart on her sleeve, which is not the case. So they are only rumours and nothing else.
She would rather be stuck with her work and is busy shooting for ‘Chenab Gandhi’ with Vibhu Puri wielding the microphone.
She’s acting alongside Amitabh Bachchan and Harman Baweja for the first time and it revolves around the life of Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, better known as Frontier Gandhi as well as Bachchan Sr. and Abhishek.