Ash to do her own stunts in Jazbaa

Though the movie will star Aishwarya, it won’t use her ultra-glamorous personality to light up the frames.

MUMBAI:

Now that little Aaradhya has started going to play school, her star mom Aishwarya Rai Bachchan makes her grand comeback with director Sanjay Gupta’s Jazbaa, her first full-fledged action film.

For a while it seemed Aishwarya’s first director Mani Ratnam would be helming her comeback film. But that project has been put on hold. The news of Aishwarya being in a film directed by adman Prahlad Kakkad also proved to be incorrect.

To be produced by Gupta, Jazbaa will mark her return to the silver screen after her daughter’s birth in November 2011. The film will start rolling early next year. Confirming these developments Gupta said: “We start Jazbaa in January 2015. We’ll be showcasing Jazbaa at the Cannes film festival in 2015.”

The filmmaker clarified that it’s not a women-centric drama. “Just because Aishwarya is in Jazbaa we should not label the film female-centric. To me, she’s the hero of the film,” he said.

Ash had done some action scenes in Dhoom 2, but she didn’t have the kind of stunts that Hrithik Roshan had. In Gupta’s film, she will do all the stunts without the help of a body-double. She has already started training for the role.

“There is no gender-specificity in what she does in the narrative. I’ve cast her in a role like any of the heroes in my films. She could be John Abraham in Shootout At Wadala or Sanjay Dutt in Zinda. It’s that kind of a role where her gender plays no role in the proceedings.”

Two prominent male actors are yet to be cast alongside Aishwarya.

Interestingly, Gupta is also working with Aishwarya’s husband and actor Abhishek Bachchan in Khottey Sikkay, which he will make immediately after Jazbaa.

“There will be no breaks in the storytelling for item songs. I will tell the stories heedless of extraneous demands. Though Jazbaa will star Aishwarya, it won’t use her ultra-glamorous personality to light up the frames. She will glow from within,” said Gupta.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 21^st, 2014.

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