Kites is now playing across North America and Brett Ratner’s Kites –

Kites is now playing across North America and Brett Ratner’s Kites – The Remix opens today, May 28, in select theaters in US/Canada. Some theaters like the AMC Empire 25 in New York City are playing both versions of the film. Kites open in more than 200 theaters across US/Canada setting a new record for the widest release of a Bollywood film ever. Theater listings are at the links below:

http://kites-thefilm.com/site-low/theatre.html

Some behind the scenes, interesting bits from the making of Kites! See below!

Santa Fe heals Hrithik Roshan’s knee injury

Before the shooting of Kites was about to commence, Hrithik Roshan travelled to various countries around the world in search of a perfect treatment for his knee injury which had been damaged after the dangerous stunts done by action hero in various films.

For more than five months Hrithik gave his knee daily 4 hours of therapy and medicines amongst many other things, but the healing process was rather slow and the shooting dates of Kites were fast approaching.

Hrithik reached Santa Fe from Los Angeles after a knee operation just two weeks before the shooting was about to start. His knee was still not okay and to top it all the shooting of action scenes was scheduled to start first, which Hrithik kept opposing since the planning stage.

Describing the experience of his stay in Santa Fe, Hrithik says, “When I reached Santa Fe, I was not in a position to shoot for Kites. But then 2 weeks passed and something magical happened. On the first day of the shoot my pain was down to 50% and after the first week it was down to 10% and the next week it was almost gone.”

He adds, “I thought all the things I did to heel my knee may have converged together. I also heard from people that Santa Fe is surrounded by magnetic mountains and people from over the world come there to get healed, so it was destiny that we chose Santa Fe to begin the film. Santa Fe actually became the reason I did the film. By the end of the second week I was running.”

Hrithik’s diet for a chiseled body

When Hrithik Roshan reached Santa Fe for the shooting of Kites after his knee operation in Los Angeles, the actor had been off his gym for a long time. But for the schedule in Santa Fe, not only was the actor expected to shoot for action scenes, but soon thereafter was also expected to shoot for a bare-chested scene with actress Barbara Mori.

Although his knee was healing well in Santa Fe, it still didn’t allow him to do cardiovascular exercises. So get into shape with very little time in hand, Hrithik decided to follow a strict diet. “I was basically living on Egg whites, almonds and peanuts because I had just 3 weeks and all those days I was shooting, so I had no time for workout on sets.”

“I had to eat a lot to maintain the muscle mass but had to be very careful to not take too much or too little of carbohydrates, otherwise then I wouldn’t have any strength to last through out day while shooting and then to come and work out again. So I just had to take the right amount and I just let my body category_ide me and eventually it worked out.”

Handy tips from the actor with the most enviable body!

Three DVDs Hrithik wanted Barbara to watch

Before Hrithik Roshan and Barbara Mori embarked upon the shooting of Kites, there was something extremely critical that Hrithik wanted Barbara to do; he wanted her to watch some of his films on DVD.

The reason being, Hrithik explains, “When Dad approached Barbara for Kites and told her I will be her co-actor she logged on the internet and saw some of my rubbish videos on YouTube and she was not very excited.”

So when Hrithik and Barbara met before the shooting of Kites, he gave her three DVDs of his films to watch – Koi Mil Gaya, Lakshya and Dhoom. “When she met me I made sure to show her some of my nice work to let her know I can really do good performance. I made sure that she saw all the DVDs because she didn’t have a clear picture about Indian Cinema and also made my impression right,” he adds.

So what was Barbara’s reaction after watching the films? “Not only was she but everyone who saw these three films very, very impressed. They were very excited and full of compliments for me so I was very happy,” exclaims Hrithik.

Barbara’s tryst with stunts

On the sets of Kites, both Hrithik and Barbara learnt some tips of acting from one another. While Hrithik saw Barbara’s belief in her instincts as the best category_ide to acting, Barbara saw Hrithik’s determination and dedication towards his work and took some cues from it.

When the lady saw Hrithik rehearse for action scenes, she insisted she would also do her action scenes herself. “The action director told Barbara that we have duplicates, but she wanted to do her action scenes herself,” says Anurag.

He further elaborates, “There is scenes where she had to hang from a truck which is travelling at a very high speed. Although there were safety cables, we didn’t want to take a chance and told her that we’d shoot it with a duplicate.”

But smart Barbara came up with a valid excuse and told Anurag that if Hrithik is not using a duplicate then why should she? “Under the pretext that Hrithik is shooting his own action scenes, Barbara said she would also shoot all her action scenes. She is very daring and it was a delight to work with her,” concludes Anurag.

The day Anurag didn’t call the action director for Kites shoot

Kites, a love story packed with some dangerous action sequences, all of which have been done by Hrithik Roshan and Barbara Mori themselves. After shooting sequences where actors climbed on moving hot air balloon and hung from moving trucks, chased tumbling fire cars and many such… breaking a piece of glass appeared a small job to Anurag Basu…not knowing what the end result would be!

So the day when Hrithik was scheduled to shoot the scene of breaking a glass, Anurag discussed this with him who also agreed confidently do this by himself and the action director wasn’t summoned that day.

“We had done so many sequences without any injuries and there was a small scene where Hrithik had to break a glass and I didn’t call any action director. I like to do most action scenes myself. So I cracked the glass and kept it for Hrithik to break, but when he broke the glass a big piece pierced into his wrist,” says Anurag.

Hrithik had to then be rushed to the hospital which left Anurag feeling highly guilty. “Hrithhik got stitches in his hand and I couldn’t stop blaming myself for it, I was shaken up,” he admits.

Kites stripped Hrithik off his acting craft

Kites stripped Hrithik off his acting craft, literally, the actor confesses. Before minds work overtime, here is the story from the horse’s mouth. So it goes that in Kites Hrithik was enamored to work with actors from the west because it helped him evolve as an actor.

Hrithik admits with all honesty, “All the actors that I’ve worked with from the west have a whole new approach to acting and it just blew my mind completely. I was just stripped off all the craft and all I was left with was the art. I was just challenging myself to rely on my instincts and my only checkpoint was whether I’ve done the shot from my heart or not.”

When asked about his experience on working with Barbara in particular, he says, “I’ve never worked with such a spontaneous actor in my life, there was a lot to learn.”

Hrithik got so comfortable with the working style of actors from the west that he did not watch a single shot of this film on the video assist, he only relied on his instincts. “I have evolved a lot because of this and all this came about because I saw how the actor’s work there,” he concludes.

For Hrithik who is a perfectionist to the T, this must have been quite a thing to pull off!

Barbara’s Hindi tuitions on the sets of Kites

Actress Barbara Mori had tuitions on Hindi everyday on the sets of Kites and no other than director Anurag Basu was at the helm of the affairs. He took the onus of teaching Hindi to Barbara, but little did Barbara know about what Anurag was teaching him.

For simple English words such as ‘good morning’ and ‘thank you’ Basu taught the actress bad words of Hindi. “Initially she didn’t realize that she was learning bad words. So she would come to say good morning to everybody on the sets and say the bad word instead that we had taught her and to top it she would say it to everyone on the sets and that too loudly,” exclaims Basu.

While initially Barbara didn’t realize she was doing something wrong, after observing everyone’s reaction for 2-3 days on the sets, she figured something was amiss. Later when the actress was told the fact she was zapped but took it very sportingly.

But this is not the end of the story. The cross cultural collaboration came about when Barbara too taught some unit members words in Spanish without telling them what the actual meaning was. “To settle cores with me and the team, Barbara would teach us Spanish words and never tell us the actual meaning of the words she taught us, but some of us were quick enough to surf the net and cross check whether what she was teaching was correct. By the end, we knew a lot of Spanish bad words and Barbara knew a lot of Hindi but only abuses,” says Anurag.

This is what you call an international collaboration in Anurag’s words.

Barbara Mori’s bald and beautiful ‘Kites’ tales

hen producer Rakesh Roshan and director Anurag Basu first met Barbara Mori for Kites story narration in Los Angeles, the actress just had inch long hair as she had gone completely bald for her role in a Spanish film.

She had just completed shooting for her film Cosas Insignificantes (Insignificant Things) that spoke of the intricacies of human relations. For her role, the Mexican beauty had shaved her head, because in the film, her screen son has cancer and is losing hair, so she expresses solidarity with him this way.

Producer Rakesh Roshan, who flew to Los Angeles to give Barbara a narration, admits that when he saw his future heroine with only one inch long hair, he was hesitant to sign her on. “I was aghast,’’ admits Rakesh. “I asked her how we would shoot with her six months down the line, but she was confident that her hair would grow or else she suggested that she would put hair extensions.’’

Director Anurag adds, “Barbara looked beautiful in short hair too. I had an option to have her with short hair in Kites, but in our industry actresses generally don’t have short hair. So later when she came to India, we did some look tests with Barbara in short hair and also with hair extensions and she looked even prettier in long hair.”

Thereon began the bald and beautiful tales of Kites!

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