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Lucky Ali tempts his fate on the big screen
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RAJEEV MASAND
MARCH 10: Lucky Ali is a star singer, right? Well he was.
Now, the pop singer with a touchy-feely velvety voice is donning
the mantle of a star himself. He has, at the moment, five
films with prominent film-makers that will be hit the marque
in the coming months.
Ali is
hitting big time and how. At a time when top notch stars like
Shah Rukh Khan and Hrithik Roshan command a price of few crores,
Ali has apparently been signed for as much as a crore for
one of these films. Bollywood is rolling out the red carpet
for him when stars like Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Shah Rukh
Khan, Govinda and Ajay Devgan are finding it increasingly
difficult to show box-office clout by attracting audiences
to their movies.
Ali joins
Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt, Sunil Shetty, Kumar Gaurav
and Mahesh Manjrekar in director Sanjay Gupta's Kaante and
has already begun work on film-maker Aditya Bhattacharya's
Avtaar. Starring with him on this film is Sophiya Haque. Ali
is committed to a film to be produced by Pooja Bhatt's Fish
Eye Productions and has also been approached for a Hindi remake
of a Tamil hit with Sunil Shetty as his co-star.
Ali has
flirted with acting as a child but after an unsuccessful attempt
to come into Bollywood as a leading man many years ago, he
switched to singing which he insists has been his first love.
Son of veteran comedian Mehmood, Ali has released three pop
albums -- Sunoh, Sifar and Aks. Each met with a varying degree
of success. Last year, his two hit songs (Na tum jano na hum
and Ek pal ka jeena) from the Hrithik Roshan-starrer Kaho
Naa...Pyaar Hai catapulted him to the big league. He now insists
that he does not want to sing too much for films.
Gupta,
who cast Ali in Kaante adapted from Reservoir Dogs -- Ali
got the role after Akshaye Khanna insisted on changes in the
script -- says Ali had already been hired to do some songs
for the soundtrack. ``Sanjay Dutt and I were chatting with
him at Mehboob Studios some months ago when I realised that
he would be perfect for this particular role,'' Gupta recalls.
``I left the room, then buzzed Sanju (Dutt) on his mobile
from outside and told him that I wanted to cast Lucky. And
Sanju -- who is a producing partner on Kaante -- instantly
embraced the idea.''
Ali, however,
was initially hesitant to don the greasepaint. ``I think he
was convinced much later, during our music sittings, when
we were discussing the film and persuading him to give it
a shot,'' recollects Gupta. At 35, not everybody is convinced
that Lucky will make an ideal leading man but Gupta believes
otherwise. ``He needs to be utilised in the correct way. You
can't ask him to run around trees or dance at a disco set,''
Gupta insists.
Having
done a photo-session with Ali already, the director says he
has a ``burning intensity in his eyes, and character on his
face''. Ali was reportedly extremely comfortable in front
of the camera. ``He was giving us some 200 different expressions.
He is a natural,'' Gupta reveals.
In the
gang-bang action-thriller Kaante, Ali is keen to make a lasting
impression because his is one of the pivotal parts. Gupta
confesses he was a little concerned whether Ali would look
convincing with a gun in hand, but he says his ``fears vanished
when I saw him pose with the weapon.''
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