SUBHASH K JHA

IANS

THE shooting of Vidya Balan- Emraan Hashmi starrer Ghanchakkar has been advanced by a month, and director Rajkumar Gupta’s excitement knows no bounds. He will finally be able to realise his wish of capturing the two actors romancing in the Mumbai monsoon.

Initially, the shooting was supposed to begin in September, and Gupta’s desire to drench his star pair in the monsoon rains almost didn’t happen due to Emraan’s time constraints.

Gupta narrated: “I had originally planned an August schedule. And Vidya, who is at the moment doing no other film, was completely one with my film’s schedule.

But Emraan was busy promoting Raaz 3 in August as the film was supposed to release at the end of August.” “But now I believe Raaz 3 has been pushed forward, so I got the window to shoot the scenes that I wanted. I guess I am just lucky.” The idea is to shoot Vidya and Emraan on the rain-soaked streets of Mumbai with secret cameras.

That’s how Gupta had shot Rajeev Khandelwal in Aamir. But to shoot two popular actors like Vidya and Emraan with hidden cameras requires a lot of courage.

“I agree. But both are used to shooting in the crowded outdoors. If Vidya could brave the Kolkata crowds in Kahaani and the Delhi crowd in my film No One Killed Jessica, then Mumbai would be a cakewalk in comparison.” “The important thing is God has been generous. Thanks to Emraan’s reshuffled appointment diary, I’m able to shoot as and when I had originally planned,” he said.

Two male actors from theatre are being finalised for the movie too.

“We are looking at new faces from theatre and from other sources. We’ve auditioned dozens. With Vidya and Emraan in the cast, I need untried talent to balance off their huge stardom. Besides Emraan and Vidya, there are two major characters, both male, plus dozens of supporting parts.” Gupta hopes to wrap up the entire shooting by December and release the film in the first quarter of 2013.

“We haven’t got a release date as yet. But I am hoping it would be the 8th of any month in the first quarter of 2013. You saw, my first film Aamir release on the 6th and my second film No One Killed Jessica release on the 7th,” he said.

And should one expect a profusion of romantic songs in Amit Trivedi’s soundtrack? “Wait and see, what Vidya and Emraan do in Ghanchakkar will be very different from what they did in ‘The Dirty Picture’,” he added.