Chris Kattan in Bollywood Hero
By Kamla Bhatt • Jul 27th, 2009Category: Books, Movies, Music, Televison, Americas, Bollywood, Bombay/Mumbai, Diaspora, Internet and Telecom India, People, Pune, Video, YouTube Videos
Slumodog Millionaire’s success is proving to be an inspiration for this American production of a Bollywood mini series aptly titled Bollywood Hero.
Bollywood Hero is a 3-part mini series that will air on IFC on August 6th throught 8th 2009 and is presented by Palm. The series stars Chris Kattan, Pooja Kumar, Neha Dhupia, and Maya Rudolph. Others that appear in the film in guest or cameo roles include Keanu Reeve, Jeniffer Coolidge of American Pie and David Alan Grier.
Kattan and Rudolph are former members of the hugely successful show Saturday Night Live. Kattan’s characters love dancing. Remember Kattan’s character Mango? Or The Roxbury Guys with Will Ferrel What is Love?
Kattan plays an actor who fails to make it big in Hollywood and turns to Bollywood. He lands up in Bombay to star in a film called “Peculiar Dancing Boy,” and realizes that he needs to learn the song and dance routine that is the secret sauce of Hindi films. What happens next is the stuff of the mini-series. I won’t be surprised if Kattan’s character in this series is inspired by his former dancing characters in his Saturday Night Live episodes. Here is a clip of Kattan learning how to do the jhatka from his heroine Lalima Lakhani played by Dhupia.
In true HIndi film fashion the mini series is studded with songs that are a mixture of old and new ones. Interestingly, the new songs are written by Michael Penn.
Bollywood Hero was shot in Mumbai over a period of 10 weeks and you can catch Kattan talk about the series with late night show host Craig Ferguson. Don’t miss Kattan makes it a point to mention that he got the crew of Slumdog Millionaire for this mini series.
It is hard to judge what Bollywood Hero will turn out to be based on the trailer. I hope it does not fall flat like Albert Brooks film Looking For Comedy In The Muslim World or Mike Myer’s Love Guru. The trailer for Brooke’s film was very entertaining, but the film was very disappointing.
Some of IFC Films releases include My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Y Tu Mama Tambien.
Kamla Bhatt is the host and producer of an Internet Radio show where listeners can find stories about the new and emerging India and the global Indian community. As a pioneer of 'internet radio' format in India Kamla started her first show News about India, followed by TalkNewsIndia in 2005. In 2006 she premiered her new show: The Kamla Bhatt Show: Life, People and Ideas. 
Thank you for the absorbing read! Alright playtime is over and back to school work.