In New York shooting for her comeback film English Vinglish, Sridevi is currently struggling with the French language to communicate with her co-star, the incredibly talented and hugely in-demand Mehdi Nebbou.
Mehdi who shot to fame in 2006 when he played the main antagonist Ali Hassan Salameh, the terrorist mastermind of the Munich Olympics' terror-attack in Steven Spielberg's Munich. This was followed by a pivotal role in Ridley Scott's Body Of Lies where Mehdi played the archvillain to Leonardo DiCaprio.
Today 38-year old Mehdi Nebbou ranks as one of the most exciting European actors. When director Gauri Shinde needed a French man to play a very special friend and confidant to Sridevi's character on New York she was very sure she wanted Nebbou.
Apparently Sri had never heard of Mehdi Nebboou before she met him in New York as the "actor who plays her French friend. "
Getting Nebbou was not that tough for Balki who incidentally is in negotiations with Meryl Streep for an autumnal love story with Amitabh Bachchan.
From the time they did their first shot together for English Vinglish the Bollywood diva and the French heart-throb have hit it off for the camera as though they've acted together for decades instead of just a few weeks.
Producer Balki who has just returned from New York laughs, "Sridevi is that kind of a rare diva who jells on screen with any actor. Look at her range of co-stars Kamal Haasan, Rajnikanth, Amitabh Bachchan Jeetendra, Rishi Kapoor..."
Mehdi is Sridevi's first non-Indian co-star.
Says Balki, "My wife Gauri and I were very sure we wanted Mehdi. He was physically and emotionally correct for the part. And
we were right. He is perfect for the role. My wife and I truly blessed to have actors like Amitji (Amitabh Bachchan), Sridevi and
Mehdi in our film. "Apparently Nebbou speaks in French in the film, a language that Sridevi's character cannot comprehend.
Says Balki, "That's the beauty of the script and that character which Sridevi plays. Though the film is about linguistic seclusion and characters speak in different tongues, the spoken language is the least important component in the narrative.
In fact there're very little spoken words in the film. That is why we've found it relatively easy to shoot English Vinglish as a tri- lingual in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. "
Sridevi and all the characters in the film would be speaking their own lines in all the three versions. Mehdi Nebbou is apparently so fascinated by his co-star that he wants to watch some of her Hindi, Tamil and Telugu films.
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