Masand: Gossip of the Week | November 17

How Kareena Got Katrina's Koffee

Karan Johar began filming a new season of his celebrity gab-fest Koffee With Karan earlier this week, and he reportedly invited star cousins Ranbir Kapoor and Kareena Kapoor to be his first guests. But, the story goes that Karan was unsure of the relationship dynamics between the Kapoor sprogs, and was keen to avoid any unpleasantness or awkward surprises that might crop up while canning this episode. So the filmmaker-cum-talk show host reportedly threw an impromptu dinner at his Khar residence the night before to gauge their chemistry and prepare them for the shoot.

To join Kareena and Ranbir at dinner on Sunday, Karan invited Ranbir's girlfriend Katrina Kaif, his best friend and Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani director Ayan Mukherji, and actors Aditya Roy Kapoor and Siddharth Malhotra.

Away in Assam until Saturday, participating in Kiran Rao's 40th birthday celebrations"where the only two people he knew on Kiran's mostly non-filmi guest list were her husband Aamir Khan and Ayan, who was also invited"Karan made sure he was back in the familiar company of his closest industry friends as soon as he got home.

Meanwhile, industry insiders say Ranbir Kapoor has decided to keep a low profile in the media after his recent Besharam debacle. The actor is currently beefing up for the next schedule of Anurag Kashyap's Bombay Velvet, which he resumes filming in January and in which he will play a boxer. The actor has apparently turned down all requests for interviews and public appearances, but couldn't say no' to an appearance on Karan's show. A source working on its production, however, reveals that Ranbir did tell Karan he wasn't ready yet to appear on the show with Katrina and take their relationship public. Which is when Karan came up with the idea of pairing him up with his equally famous cuz.

Vidya Balan, who's had a relatively quiet year aside from the box-office unfriendly Ghanchakkar, which she was nevertheless terrific in, will follow up that comedy with another light entertainer. Her next release is Shaadi Ke Side Effects, a post-marriage romantic-comedy in which Farhan Akhtar plays her hapless hubby. As it turns out, Farhan's onscreen character in the film goes by the name"wait for this"Sid Roy.

Nope, Vidya didn't demand that Farhan's character be named after her own real-life husband Siddharth Roy Kapoor. In fact, the actress revealed to me earlier this week that she was attached to this project well before she ever met Siddharth and the character had that name all along. "The project was in development for a few years. It didn't get made immediately after I signed it. And then recently, when it was finally a go', I was looking at the script to prepare for the role and I noticed the character's name: Sid Roy'. It was a happy coincidence, nothing else," she laughed.

At the opening night of one of Mumbai's most popular theatre festivals recently, a debutante actress who made a powerhouse debut earlier this year in a unanimously acclaimed film got a taste of vintage Bollywood boorishness. The actress, who was seated at the same table as a mostly retired senior actor and director (who also happens to be the eldest son of a legendary actor-filmmaker), made polite conversation with the veteran before he launched into a verbal assault on her film, leaving the poor lady visibly shaken.

First the senior actor praised the young lady's work in the film, then proceeded to dismiss the performance of both her male co-stars, insisting they delivered nothing one hadn't seen before. But he reserved his choicest adjectives for the film itself, which he insisted was "slow" and "boring" and "moved at the pace of a snail". Referring to a recent controversy involving the film's failure to be selected as India's Oscar entry, the senior star reportedly chided the by-now-horrified actress for all the "bickering" and "complaining" on part of the film's makers in response to their failure to make the cut. "Why must be care about the Oscars? What's the big deal?" he bellowed in full view of other guests at the star-studded event.

The veteran, known to enjoy a drink or two (or three or four) every evening, had clearly had a little too much by now, and once his grumbles grew louder, the traumatised actress politely excused herself on the pretext of needing to use the restroom... never to return.