Arjun Rampal, who was most recently seen in the thriller Nail Polish (2020) on ZEE5, has been roped in to star in the upcoming film The Rapist. The project will reunite the actor with award-winning actress Konkona Sen Sharma after a huge gap of eight years. The duo previously worked together on an independent anthology film, titled Meridian Lines (2013) which told the story of seven troubled strangers.
The Rapist is a high-voltage social drama, set to be directed by Sharma’s mother and well-known Bengali filmmaker Aparna Sen. Sameer Nai will bankroll the project under his production house Applause Entertainment.
Spilling some more beans, a source close to the development tells a publication, “The Rapist is a hard-hitting drama that examines how much of society is responsible for producing rapists. It's about the victim's trauma, the circumstances, and how a woman deals with it. The pre-production has already started and will get off the ground officially in March.”
Aparna Sen, whose filmography includes several successful titles, is known for presenting socio-political realities through most of her work. Just like her previous credits 36 Chowringhee Lane (1981), Paroma (1984), Yugant (1995), and Mr. & Mrs. Iyer (2002), The Rapist is also expected to be as political and outspoken as possible. With her next directorial, Sen returns to Hindi cinema to direct her third film after Saari Raat (2015) and Sonata (2017).
Meanwhile, Arjun Rampal is presently busy shooting for his next film Dhaakad. Also starring Kangana Ranaut in the lead role, the upcoming action thriller is jointly produced by Sohel Maklai Productions and Asylum Films. It marks the directorial debut of well-known ad-filmmaker Razneesh Ghai. Dhaakad is slated to arrive in theatres worldwide on October 1, 2021. The actor also plays crucial parts in the period war drama The Battle of Bheema Koregaon and Nastik.
Keep visiting this space for more updates and reveals from the world of entertainment.
Speaking at a business event, she basically said her village roots made it harder.
Directly named SRK, calling him a Delhiite with a convent education.
Threw "brutal honesty" out there as her secret weapon.
You can already imagine the social media frenzy this kicked off.
It's the latest salvo in the whole insider-outsider war that never ends.
Well, she's done it again. Kangana Ranaut, now MP, just reframed the entire Bollywood struggle debate with one comparison. At a recent industry gathering in Delhi, she got to talking about her success. And then she brought up Shah Rukh Khan. Not with nostalgia. She positioned her own journey from a no-name Himachal village as the tougher path against his, what she termed, convent-educated Delhi background, and it obviously sparked reactions online.
Kangana says coming from a small village and being brutally honest shaped her journey in Bollywood Getty Images
So what did she actually say?
Her exact words: "Why did I get so much success?" she asked the room. Classic Kangana, starting with a question she's about to answer herself. "There is probably nobody else who came from a village and got such success in the mainstream. You talk about Shah Rukh Khan. They are from Delhi, convent-educated. I was from a village that nobody would have even heard of, Bhamla." And the punchline is that she believes it's her "brutal honesty" that did the trick.
Kangana calls brutal honesty her secret weapon in the film industryGetty Images
Let's talk about these two different worlds
Look at the facts. Kangana. Bhamla. Left at 15 for Mumbai, a kid with no roadmap. Her fight in the industry is well-documented, every step a battle she talks about. Four National Awards though, that's huge. Then Shah Rukh. Delhi. Lost his parents young, sure. But he cut his teeth on TV, became a name before he even hit films. His Mumbai move in '91 led to... well, to being King Khan. Both stories are about making it from nothing. But nothing means different things depending on your postcode, apparently.
Shah Rukh Khan’s Delhi upbringing gets compared to Kangana’s village struggleGetty Images
And the fallout?
It's a mess online, obviously. You have one side cheering her on for saying the quiet part out loud: that a village girl with no English has a steeper hill to climb than a guy from the capital. Then the other side is just exhausted. They're saying it's a cheap shot, that it diminishes Khan's own loss and grind. Does this debate even go anywhere? It just seems to recycle every few months. But people click. They always click.
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