ASK actress Lara Dutta about life after marriage with Mahesh Bhupathi and she chuckles,Its the same. I see so little of Mahesh as was the case even before our marriage. Ever since they got married in February this year,Bhupathi has been busy with tennis tournaments,while Lara has been overseeing the post-production of Chalo Dilli. This film,to release on April 29,marks the debut of both Lara and Mahesh as producers. Mahesh has no aspirations to act,but he is definitely going to make films. His company Big Daddy Productions is co-producing Chalo Dilli along with my production house Bheegi Basanti Entertainment, the actress says. The script of Chalo Dilli was offered to Lara by director Shashant Shah purely as an acting assignment. Shashant approached me to play the role of Mihika Banerjee,which I accepted. At that time,Shashant was looking for a producer and he wanted somebody established to come on board, she says. Shashant approached several big production houses with the script,but none of them paid attention to this medium-budget film. Thats when Mahesh suggested that he and I produce the film together. Mahesh and I complement each other well. He has a wonderful business sense while I am familiar with the functioning of the industry. And having producer-distributor Eros Entertainment on their side definitely proved to be a huge advantage. Chalo Dilli is the story of about two fiercely different people coming together during a 48-hour journey,and being forced to depend on each other. While Lara plays the role of a hard-nosed,sophisticated,urban working woman,Vinay Pathak plays a rustic character. The script was written keeping Vinay in mind. When I read the script,I felt that Vinay and my pairing would be the USP of the film because people would be seeing us together for the first time, Lara states. The final product has made Lara happy,but being the actor-producer on the sets of Chalo Dilli was exhausting,she claims. To begin with,they had to wrap up the shoot in 33 days keeping the budget in mind. I wish we had the extravagance of shooting for 68 days. Every time I was giving a shot,I knew at the back of my mind that my unit hadnt dispersed for dinner or I knew the sun would set in two hours and we had four hours of shoot left. There were so many wonderful moments during the filming,but I was too exhausted to enjoy any of those, explains Lara,a self-proclaimed hard taskmaster. I want things to be done in a certain manner. Like most women,I see to it that they are done efficiently. Do statements like,only out-of-work actresses turn producers bother her? These statements are coming from people who havent done anything in life. These myth-like statements should just be banned, she says. We will soon start the pre-production of the next film from our banners. Meanwhile,I have Don 2 to look forward to, she adds.
