Critical acclaim, rave reviews; Lady Luck is sure charmed by Abhay DeolThe Deol household is quite proud of him. His father is glued to the telly, catching teasers of his next, and Dibakar Bannerjee’s much-awaited, Oye Lucky Lucky Oye (OLLO). Big brothers Sunny and Bobby pat his back proudly and humour, “you do your kind of films, we’ll do ours, till the twain meet!” While the Greek Gods of the Deol khandaan flex their muscles and lounge on their heavenly leather couches of stardom, Abhay Deol is happy walking the streets, New York preferably, dabbling in art, indulging in self explorations in theatre, piecing together concepts and treatments of future projects, weaving countless stories that dash in and out of his head, blissfully ignorant of the glam camps till we ask him to pull over and include us in his free-wheelin’ thought process. In town for the promotion of OLLO, Abhay, as usual on ground zero, shares how he “stuck to his guns, and now the tables have turned.” Critical acclaim and rave reviews, worth-watching work in films like Manorama Six Feet Under, Ek Chalis Ki Last Local, Socha Na Tha, Ahista Ahista and Honeymoon Travels later, this Deol sure feels like a lucky man. “My films never had any backing, they still did well, I’ve done well.I’ve never aimed for the starry status or run around trees or after a Yashraj, and I have nothing against it too, but I’ve always wanted to do relateable characters, something which the common man feels good about,” says this latest addition to the common man’s actor, one who feels that days of the formula of glamour and heroism are long gone. “It’s time to tell the real stories.” And that’s what OLLO’s doing - “a thief who steals a life for himself,” Abhay quickly clears the air that it’s not a Bunty aur Babli, neither a Catch Me If You Can. “It’s about this simple Delhi-based guy who doesn’t have a great father, or education, but wants everything in life. He falls in bad company and is misled, he’s not a baddie per se.” A thief with a heart of gold? “You can say that,” Deol dimples telling us how the story’s inspired from real life incidents, and how he underwent workshops on picking the right Delhi accent, getting familiar with rough neighbourhoods, acquiring that chor attitude. Coming from a filmi background, Abhay did find breaking the cliches difficult. “There are prejudices and expectations, nothing in between, and then this general thinking that un-talented star kids have it easy,” well, Deol did manage to shatter a few glass ceilings of his own. “I am more interested in work, the free flow of thought,” that’s the reason Abhay’s been writing concepts, he wrote the Dev D one, and chalking out treatments for couple of films. “Comedies, the dark and funny ones, and then stories that are relevant to our culture.” Meanwhile, catch OLLO on November 28. Calendar GirlActor Neetu Chandra has releases right through the New Year!Sonal is your typical girl next door who qualifies as the perfect marriage material. “Everyone’s waiting for the wedding bells but little do they know that she elopes with the thief,” actor Neetu Chandra loves the twist to her character in OLLO. After Garam Masala, Traffic Signal and One Two Three, Neetu will be seen as the middle class girl reeling under society’s pseudo pressures. “Like all characters, I bring my middle class sensibilities to this one,” tells Neetu, a sportsperson who hails from Patna. Martial arts expert, kathak dancer, taekwondo, korf ball.why wasn’t sports the first choice? “Because there is no future in it. A career in sports, especially for a girl in a country like India is impossible. It was quite a journey from Patna to the Nationals, but I didn’t want to go through the grind all over again, there are too many speedbreakers,” Neetu gets candid and sticks to her ‘stars’. Considering that she has releases in November (OLLO) and December (Mumbai Cutting) and then in the New Year, January (Thirteen Weeks) and February (Kushar Prasad Ka Bhoot), Neetu’s making all the right ‘solo’ moves. “I want to be a combination of Smita Patil and Madhuri Dixit,” she says. Glamour or guts? “Well, an actor is blessed if they get a Yashraj!” Now that’s a magic potion that works for all!
