For someone to break into Bollywood, you need to be ready to make incessant trips to production houses and meet directors. Or if you are lucky you get spotted at a party or at some filmi do.But if you are Shraddha Kapoor the producer and director find you through a social networking site!
Shraddha, the daughter of Shakti Kapoor and Shivangi Kolhapure, was spotted by Leena Yadav as she looked for actors to cast in her soon to be released film Teen Patti.
“Actually something happened before the Facebook incident. The assistant casting director actually saw her somewhere and he suggested her name. And we were like ‘okay…Shakti Kapoor has a daughter who is ready to act. Okay we need to find her’. So before we got in touch formally we just gave it a shot,” says Leena with a laugh, “Because everybody is on Facebook these days!”
“I think Ambika (Hinduja) knows Shraddha’s brother so with that we got entry into Facebook and we checked her out there. And we said ‘there is something there.’ So we got her into the office and that’s where Shraddha’s story began,” explains Yadav.
With the film a fortnight away from release, Yadav is anxious but she says that has nothing to do with the fact that she has four debutants in her film.
“You know I auditioned for these roles for almost a year. It took me a year to find these final four that I settled on. After that we had some real intense and hard core workshops with the best in the business. And then when I saw them in the same frame as the likes of Mr. Amitabh Bachchan and do so splendidly I was so proud of them. It’s not easy being in the position they are in. I completely empathise with them. Through the filming I almost became like a mother to them and now I feel like I am about to give them up for adoption as the film stands for release,” says Leena.
Teen Patti stars Amitabh Bachchan, Sir Ben Kingsley, Madhavan, Saira Mohan and debutants Shraddha Kapoor,
The film is slated for release on February 26 with a big premiere in London.
Star Box Office
13 Feb 2010