VICKEY LALWANI , MUMBAI MIRROR, Jan 25, 2011, 12.00am IST
Deepika Padukone's year may be choc-a-bloc with films but she should at least hear out directors before slamming the door on them.
A few days ago, Deepika rejected Kalpana Lajmi's film without once talking to her, forget reading the script.
Lajmi, the director of Rudaali (1993), whose last film Chingaari, starring Sushmita Sen hit the theatres in 2006, has been struggling for quite some time to put a project together.
A source says, "Lajmi called up Deepika's secretary who told her in the first call that Deepika won't do the film since she had no dates. Lajmi was willing to wait till Deepika had dates but was shocked at her secretary's refusal."
Two months after Lajmi spoke to Deepika's secretary, the actress texted her saying that she can't do her film, as she is not free until 2012. "The message was polite. But Lajmi is wondering why an actress would turn a film down even before speaking to the director," adds the source.
When contacted, Lajmi said, "I was ready to wait till Deepika was free. It is sad that today's heroines are busy only in image-building exercises. They forget that it is the medium of cinema and nothing else that makes them popular."
Though the actress stayed out of this, her manager said, "We would love to work with a senior director like Lajmi but unfortunately, there are only 365 days in a year. We had committed our dates. Hence we decided to be upfront about it and not keep her hanging."
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