With her next movie set for release on January 13, 2012, Sayali Bhagat is one happy woman. In the city with director Puja Jatinder Bedi, Sayali was at a furnishings store in Abids as a part of her promotional tour.
Ghost, a horror flick, also stars actor Shiney Ahuja and Russian actress Julia Bliss. Set in a hill-station, the movie follows a supposedly gruesome trail of murders that brings Sayali’s and Shiney’s character together.
Though in the city to promote her Hindi film, the former Miss India is not new to Hyderabad, or for that matter, Tollywood. Seen in movies like Blade Babji and Inkosaari, she is quite familiar with the south film industry, with a Tamil movie also to her credit.
Talking about her newest movie, Sayali says, “Ghost, as the movie name suggests, has demons, ghosts, people getting possessed and all that. Shooting for the movie was such a nightmare because we’d (the cast) have nightmares and wake up in the morning and exchange our dreams. I brought my mother along on the shoot and would hug her and sleep at night.”
So what would compel a former beauty queen to do a horror flick?
“It was an interesting script because my character, Dr Suhani, comes from a science background. Yet, she believes in the existence of these negative supernatural forces. Plus, I’ve somewhere along believed in ghosts, so I liked the concept.”
The actress also confessed to being so scared that she would read Hanuman Chalisa constantly. “That book was always next to me throughout. I think I began believing in them all the more even though I’ve always been a horror movie fan,” says the actress who’s favourite horror flick is The exorcism of Emily Rose.
The five foot odd Puja Jatinder Bedi is a fiesty woman who believes she’ll be revolutionising horror movies in India with the release of Ghost.
“I’ve always been a fan of horror movies. But I feel so bad when the audience end up laughing while watching a horror film. I know how much effort goes into making a film, a horror one at that. That’s exactly what I’ve tried to change. There is a lot of gore and scare and I know this movie is going to be like none other,” says the director
Poiting out that the major flaw that horror films in India till date have been a poorly written script, she explains, “I’ve paid a lot of attention to how the script flows. I’ve chosen good looking people like Shiney and Sayali to provide that relief in all that darkness. I’ve worked specifically towards a better script. I used to have nightmares in the night that would wake me up at 3 am. Then I’d sit and improvise on the script.”
Coming from a film background, Bedi believes had given her better sense of how the movie had to be made. Plus her fascination for horror movies would have definitely paid off while conceptualising and making the movie. But, ask her if she thinks she might have ended up borrowing heavily from her favourite directors and movies in her zest to re-create horror films in India, and she unabashedly replies, “Good artists borrow, great artists steal. Pablo Picasso said that. Its a natural phenomenon and inspiration comes from other great works. So yes, I most probably have. After all, I want to be a great artist. We all strive for that.”