The highly awaited Rajinikanth film, |Lingaa, opens this week. Bollyworld and Bollywood Hungama’s Joginder Tuteja report…
Rajinikanth does a movie once in five years and when it releases the excitement of his fans cannot be contained.
Screaming and singing in praise of this superstar is all that fans want to do and this dedication is witnessed around the world.
South Africa, too, is now starting to see this frenzy and grandeur. Lingaa looks set to be another Rajinikanth hit.
Director KS Ravikumar boasts a star-studded cast: Rajinikanth, Sonakshi Sinha, Anushka Shetty, comedian Santhanam, Vijaykumar, Radharavi and Karunakaran.
The movie is produced by Rockline Entertainment and the music composed by Oscar-winning composer, AR Rahman.
The film got its title from the name of Rajinikanth’s grandson and Dhanush’s son, Lingaa.
Rajinikanth plays a dual role in Lingaa – one of a freedom fighter and the other, a chief engineer for the very famous dam in India called the Periyar Dam.
British actress Lauren Irwin stars opposite Rajinikanth. Sonakshi makes her debut in Tamil films with Lingaa.
Meanwhile, Joginder Tuteja reports that Sonakshi has yet another thunderous addition to her repertoire.
Being a co-star with Rajinikanth isn’t something that many leading ladies can dream of today, considering the fact that the superstar has slowed down on the number of films that he does.
However, for Sonakshi playing a “rajini heroine” has now been fulfilled.
“It is phenomenal to work with him,” says Sonakshi, who started her career with Salman Khan and has reached Rajinikanth in a matter of four years and 10 films.
“He is so grounded and humble; that is something to learn from. If I achieve 1 percent of what he has in his career spanning 40 years and 200 films, I’d be on cloud nine.”
Other than the fact that she worked with a professional who is easily the biggest entertainer from this side of the world, she was speechless when it came to the personal traits the 63-year-old actor has.
“I am stunned to see how nice he is as a person. He doesn’t carry any airs of a superstar at all. He is such a normal and refreshing person. I used to be amazed practically every day on seeing him humbly meet and greet everyone on set.”
As for her stint in the film, Sonakshi is glad that she didn’t have much trouble picking up Tamil. Even though the film is being dubbed into Hindi as well, the original scenes required her to learn Tamil.
“Guess I am good at picking up languages and accents,” smiles Sonakshi. “At times I used to read from placards. Sometimes I would repeat after people prompted me on the set. I used to sit with KS Ravikumar and understand the kind of expressions he wanted from me. As for my delivery and diction, my director was impressed that I could come across as South Indian.”
She credits working with many South Indian directors for picking up languages: “I have done three films with Prabhu Dheva (Rowdy Rathore, R... Rajkumar, Action Jackson) and one with AR Murugadoss (Holiday).” – Menaka Films and Bollywoodhungama.com