"Bride and Prejudice"


 

Gurinder Chadha, Aishwarya Rai and Martin Henderson on the sets of Bride and Prejudice

Chadha’s film, "Bride and Prejudice" Aishwarya Rai takes the lead role and New Zealand actor Martin Henderson

Bend it Like Beckham director Gurinder Chadha has said her Bollywood version of Pride and Prejudice will span several continents.

Chadha’s film, renamed Bride and Prejudice, stays faithful to Austen’s original story, although the Bennett family become the Bakshis, and Mr Darcy becomes a wealthy American. Aishwarya Rai takes the lead role in the film His unsavoury friend Mr Bingley is still an Englishman - in this case a barrister - and according to Gillies, who plays him, his character will be “more despicable”.

At Mukesh Mills, art directors Nitish Roy and Nick Ellis have created an elaborate Amritsar street scene. Two bedecked elephants that have played a starring role in the final scene of the film — the weddings — are getting restless. But it’s pack up for the India shoot and location shift to Los Angeles for the final schedule of Chadha’s “British movie with a nod to Bollywood”.“I am exhausted, I have been shooting for three months and 10 days — in London, Amritsar, Goa and now Mumbai. We go to Los Angeles next,” says Chadha.

“We’ve shot the opening song of the film here — with Lalita (Rai) and her friend Chandra (Sonali Kulkarni) and the closing scene.” Prior to this was a song shoot in Goa, with American R & B artist Ashanti.

“She was amazing and focused. She came with her mother and hair and make up and all these black American women were completely freaked out about being in India. They only ate packaged Udon noodles that they had brought with them. Ashanti appears in a beach party in Goa and has sung in Hindi and English.”

Chadha, whose previous films include Bend It Like Beckham and Bhaji on the Beach, plans to complete the film by next summer, but anticipates a release by the end of 2004.