MUMBAI: Debutant director Siddharth Malhotra feels his cousin Kareena Kapoor has surpassed Julia Roberts in Stepmom in his upcoming Hindi remake called We Are Family.
“According to me Kareena has surpassed Julia Roberts from the original,” gushes Malhotra.
According to the director, he had to use producer Karan Johar’s help to sign on Kajol and Kapoor for the film.
“The two actors are the best we have.There was never an ego issue. Both of them were super-professional. That is why it took two years to get the remake rights and only 64 shifts to make my film. Kajol was a dream. She’d arrive on the dot at 9 a.m. be on the sets for the first shot at 9:30 am and we would pack up at 6 pm so that she could return to her baby. To me she was the ideal actor, wife and mother, and that’s what she plays in my film.”
Malhotra, who worked on Vivaah (which starred Shahid Kapoor and Amrita Rao) as well as Kal Ho Naa Ho (Saif Ali Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and Preity Zinta) enjoys family-oriented films.
But don’t expect to see much of the original, tear-jerker Stepmom in the Bollywood remake. While the original was a harrowing tale of how a terminally ill Susan Sarandon has to relinquish responsibilities to her ex-husband’s young girlfriend (Roberts), the trailer for We Are Family looks like a happy, glossy version of the basic premise: two women sharing the same family.
According to Malhotra, “I have just taken six or seven key elements of Stepmom and written it on my own.”
We Are Family features Rahat Fateh Ali Khan on the soundtrack and also stars actor Arjun Rampal. The film is scheduled to release on September 3.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 7th, 2010.
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