Akshay Kumar: Insulting to compare 'Airlift' with 'Argo'

January 19, 2016

Mumbai, Jan 19: Akshay Kumar's upcoming 'Airlift' shares the same genre as 'Argo' but the superstar says it is an insult to his film when people compare it to the Oscar-winning Hollywood movie as the story is inspired by a real incident.

airliftThe 48-year-old actor says while the Ben Affleck-starrer chronicled the evacuation of six Americans at the time of Iran hostage crisis, 'Airlift' is the story of 1,70,000 Indians who were rescued from Kuwait during the Iraq-Kuwait war. "Saying that our film is copied from 'Argo' is an insult. How can it be a copy when it is a true story? It is not a copy. It is something which you should be proud of. It is the story of the biggest ever human evacuation in the history of mankind," Akshay told reporters here.

Director Raja Krishna Menon says other than the common theme of evacuation, there is no similarity between his film and the 2012 Hollywood movie. "The only faint link is that some people were saved in a covert operation. Everything else is different. It is only a similar genre. Our film is about the single greatest achievement of independent India. 'Argo' is not in that space," Menon said.

The actor says he was not aware of the 1990 incident and only came to know about it when the director gave him the script of 'Airlift'. "At that time there was only one article about the evacuation. The government did it silently. It is not a matter of joke. When I met those people, they started crying at the mention of it. I was deeply inspired by the story. It shows the greatness of our country."

In the film, Akshay plays a businessman Ranjit Katyal, who negotiates with the government to evacuate 1,70,000 Indians stranded in Kuwait and fly them to India. 'Airlift' also stars Nimrat Kaur and Purab Kohli. In recent times, Akshay has successfully juggled between commercial potboilers like 'Singh is Bliing' and thrillers with patriotic themes like 'Baby' and 'Holiday'. The actor says he loves to keep challenging himself with different roles.

"I keep on challenging myself all the time. I want to be in my comfort zone and then try some roles which are challenging for me. 'Singh is Bliing' and 'Housefull 3' are in my comfort zone but this one is not, 'Baby' was not.

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Agencies
February 10,2020

Hollywood star Joaquin Phoenix finally ended his dry run at the Oscars as he picked up the best actor trophy for his performance in and as "Joker" at the 92nd Academy Awards.

The 45-year-old actor had earlier bagged a BAFTA, a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award for his turn as a failed, unhinged stand-up comedian who descends into chaos.

In a lengthy and rambling speech, Phoenix touched upon racism, climate change and gender inequality. He also remembered his brother River Phoenix, who died of a drug overdose at the age of 23 in 1993.

"When he was 17, my brother wrote this lyric. He said, 'run to the rescue with love and peace will follow'," Phoenix said. At the Academy Awards and the entire Hollywood award season, Phoenix had emerged as an undisputed frontrunner even though he was up against the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio ("Once Upon a Time in Hollywood"), Adam Driver ("Marriage Story"), "Antonio Banderas ("Pain & Glory") and Jonathan Pryce ("The Two Popes").

An Oscar had eluded Phoenix for the most part of his career, despite his successful collaborations with Ridley Scott ("Gladiator"), James Mangold ("Walk The Line") and Paul Thomas Anderson ("The Master"), all of which had earned him nominations.

But as Arthur Fleck aka The Joker, Phoenix finally managed to break that jinx and became the second actor to win an Oscar for playing the DC comic book villain after the posthumous best supporting actor win to Heath Ledger in 2008.

As Joker, Phoenix took a deep dive into character, capturing its essence as well as maniacal spirit in both body and soul.

He lost 52 pounds to get into the physicality of Fleck and turned to a pathological disorder to get his distinct laughter right.

Phillips wrote the part keeping Phoenix in mind though the actor took some convincing to play the role.

Phoenix started the film's festival circuit tour on a positive note at Cannes last year that followed by stops at Venice and Toronto.

The film had also courted controversies, owing to its theme of gun violence in the movie as well as Phoenix's temperamental press tour that saw him walking out of an interview midway.

But critics and the fans loved the actor's riveting turn in the movie and his pointed speeches.

At the Golden Globes, he called out the industry for its insensitivity towards climate change and pulled up his peers for using private jets for travel, while at the SAGs, he joked how he would always lose a role to DiCaprio and asked Christian Bale to deliver a bad performance for once in his career.

In his acceptance speech at the BAFTAs, Phoenix acknowledged the lack of diversity in the nominations, calling himself a part of the problem. Phoenix's career most praised performances include "Signs ", "We Own the Night", "Two Lovers", "The Immigrant", "Her", "You Were Never Really Here" and "Inherent Vice".

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News Network
July 19,2020

New Delhi, Jul 19: Actor Deepika Padukone on Sunday confirmed the news of her teaming up with 'Baahubali' actor Prabhas for an upcoming project.

Padukone stated that she is "beyond thrilled" for her the project, which will be helmed by Nag Ashwin, who is known for delivering some hit Telugu movies.

He is known for directing the National-Award winning biopic 'Mahanati'. The forthcoming flick will be under the banner of Vyjayanthi Movies.

The 34-year-old star shared a video by the production house revealing the news, and wrote: "Beyond Thrilled! Cannot wait for what we believe is going to be an incredible journey ahead.."

In the video, the makers of the movie addressed their pride in collaborating with Deepika Padukone and Prabhas. The yet-to-be-titled movie will be the first film to see the two actors sharing the screen-space.

However, other details of the project are yet to be officially revealed.

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News Network
April 3,2020

Washington, April 3: American actor Kristen discussed her experience being isolated with husband and their two kiddos.

According to Fox News, the 39-year-old actor discussed how she and Shepard are finding quarantine to be a little tough in a video chat to Entertainment Tonight.

Bell admitted: "We've gotten on each other's last nerve these last couple days. We're doing much better now because were laughing about it. But when we were not laughing about it for the first couple of days, that's the hard spot."

The 'Bad Mom' actor then shared her thoughts on why quarantining with loved ones can be so tough. She explained that she loves spending time with her husband and he loves spending time with her.

But what she thinks is different about this quarantine time is you have so much more time to think about the other persona and their actions and sort of replay what they said or attach a meaning to something that they did.
Bell added: "Nobody really needs time for that. That's useless."

The 'Frozen' actor also discussed having to make adjustments in regards to her kids, 7-year-old Lincoln, and 5-year-old Delta, and the schedule she tried to keep once the quarantine began.

She said that the biggest lesson she learnt, in the beginning, was that she wrote out the colour coded schedule, and noted about when will be their academic and academic time.

Kristen explained that by day five of schedule, she was making everybody miserable. About a week ago, she woke her kids up and encouraged her daughters to rip up the schedule, explaining that the kids "felt so good."

"I said the learning lesson here is that if you make a plan and it's not working, you pivot," said Bell.

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