Eminent journalist Shekhar Gupta, in a piece for The Print, brought out the dark and ugly side of the otherwise glamorous showbiz industry. Holding a mirror to the bitter reality of award functions, Mr. Gupta, in his special piece recalled incidents that took place before the Screen Awards in 2012. He mentioned that the Best Film award was shared between The Dirty Picture and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. However, this decision taken by the jury didn't go down well with the team of the Zoya Akhtar directorial who ended up mass boycotting the event. So much so, they even persuaded their friends to skip the award function a skip. Mr. Gupta further added that after calling Javed Akhtar, Farhan Akhtar, who was one of the film's lead actors turned up. However, he refused to come on the stage to accept the award. In order to settle the situation down, Mr. Gupta recalled requesting Krishika Lulla, whose company, Eros, held the worldwide rights to Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. Despite 'pleading', none from the team walked up to the stage to accept the award and the organisers had to get one of their staff members to take it on the film's behalf.
"The best film was shared between Vidya Balan-starrer Dirty Picture and multi-starrer Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (ZNMD). So far, so good. But again, in its wisdom, the jury chose Milan Luthria (Dirty Picture) for best director, and not Zoya Akhtar (ZNMD). On the day of the awards, Priyanka Sinha Jha (editor of the award function) called in panic as usual. The cast and crew of ZNMD, she said, were boycotting. Now, how do you run an awards evening if nobody appears on the stage to accept ‘best film’. We again started diplomacy. But it wasn’t working. Not only was nobody from the film turning up, they had also persuaded all their friends. At one point that evening, I got desperate enough to even call Javed Akhtar to plead with him. I did get a call back from Farhan. He turned up, sullen and in a black tee. He said while he might have come there out of respect (not for the jury), he wouldn’t accept the award on the stage. He left in a few minutes. In the front rows, I spotted Krishika Lulla, whose company Eros held the worldwide rights to the film, and requested her to come and accept the award for the film. The temperature dropped to minus-30; she froze. How could any producer risk the ire of multiple dynasties, stars and a sizeable clique all rolled together? We had to finally get one of our staff members to take the award on the film’s behalf," Mr. Gupta mentioned in his article.
In addition to this, he went on to recall the time when Katrina Kaif refused to perform despite being paid fully. Mr. Gupta revealed that the actress 'threw tantrums' before her act. When he went to her vanity van, tears rolled down her face for not being given an award. Due to this, Mr. Gupta said they had to invent a popular choice award.
"In 2010, when Katrina Kaif was to perform, paid fully in advance, she threw a tantrum minutes before her performance as she wasn’t being given any award. I was taken to her vanity van to plead with her. Katrina was all dressed and painted up to perform. And then, the outburst. Why do they always call me but give me no awards? I said that was never the deal, you have a contract to perform. But by now, tears were streaming down her face, taking much of the make-up in their wake. Again, we invented a popular choice award,"
(Source: The Print)
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