SHOWBITZ

Richa on a roll

Richa Gangopadyay is busy as a bee. The “Mayakkam Enna” and “Osthe” heroine has Telugu, Bengali and Kannada films in the pipeline. As for Tamil, the actor is going through a couple of good scripts. Currently, she is wrapping up “Bikram Singha” (remake of Tamil film “Siruthai”) in Bengali. She says: “I am happy to do a film in my mother tongue. Director Rajib Biswas has slightly extended my character in the film and I am happy about that. I am also working with the legendary Prosenjit Chatterjee who has acted in more than 350 films. Produced by one of the largest film banners in Bengal, Eskay Productions, the shooting for this film is through in three months. After doing two good films in Tamil, I prefer to wait and sign up for a project that involves a good role, a fine director and a powerful script,” says the beauty pageant winner who turned to acting.

Stunt and the man

Director Chakri Toleti is leaving no stone unturned for the action sequences of his upcoming film “Billa 2”. He's roped in Kecha Khamphakdee, stunt coordinator of Jaika stunt team that's been involved with films such as “Mr. Nokia” starring Manoj Manchu, “Vishwaroopam” starring Kamal Hassan and “Zilla Ghaziabad”. The stuntmen are full praise for both Kamal Haasan and Ajith Kumar for their dedication. “For ‘Billa 2', Ajith does his stunts without a double. He is charming, polite and friendly to everyone on the sets. He is willing to try out new things and proving to be skilled in various sports. This made it easy for us to work with him. He displays remarkable agility in the stunt sequences,” say the team members about the actor.

Just one shot

Sriman is enthusiastic when he speaks about his recent film. “In ‘Aduthadhu', there is a sequence that portrays one of the characters in the film attempting to hang himself. Normally, such a scene will take two or three shots to complete. But director Thakkali Srinivasan wanted to finish it in a single shot. So the planning had to be precise. It was risky. It's difficult to even imagine the consequences if something went wrong. I promised my wife not to experiment like this in future. The film being a murder mystery, I just did as the director asked me to. Thank god, it went off well.”