Kalki Koechlin was taken aback by co-star Abhay Deol's decisison to not seek any help from her on the sets of their upcoming film. Of French origin, Kalki Koechlin was born and brought up in Pondicherry.
As a result she is extremely fluent in Tamil. Abhay, who essays a Tamilian bureacrat, would rehearse the Tamil dialogues on the sets to get into the skin of his character. But he strangely avoided her.
Says a unit source, "He would rehearse the Tamil lines with director Dibakar Banerjee before the shoot with the director. But he did not converse with his co-star who has full command over the language."
Kalki who grew up in Auroville, near Pondicherry, used to spend a lot of time with the local Tamilians — from whom she had her pronunciations right.
Adds the source, "He would state that he has no one to recite his dialogues as practice, even when Kalki was around. Tamil for him was alien and had considered taking tips from cousin Esha Deol but she was busy during the shoot of his film so could not give him any inputs. Finally a film writer came to his rescue."
Apparently Kalki has been overheard saying that she found Abhay's indifference weird. And wondering why he did not care to rehearse the Tamil lines with her — when she is part of the film!
Overconfident?
Most filmmakers shy away from having an advance screening of their film for the media. They prefer to have it a night before or on the day of the film's release to avoid any comments that may hamper the film's prospects.
They also don't like the reviews being published earlier. But Dibakar Banerjee's upcoming film is apparently planning to have a press screening two days earlier and don't mind the reviews being out before the film releases this Friday! Looks like they are expecting a winner on their hands!