Sonam Kapoor has reportedly been signed to United Talent Agency, a powerful literary and talent agency whose clients are a who’s who of the Hollywood creme de la creme including Angelina Jolie, Kanye West and Johnny Depp.
To many people, this inadvertently looks as though Kapoor is jumping on the Hollywood bandwagon – a trend many think Priyanka Chopra first started and Deepika Padukone continued.
But Kapoor isn’t jumping on any bandwagon because that bandwagon does not exist.
In 2004, Aishwarya Rai had a sleeper hit across the pond with Bride & Prejudice, a masala flavored adaptation of the Jane Austen novel, that had everyone at Hollywood talking about her, Julia Roberts called her “the most beautiful woman in the world” and Oprah had her as a guest star on an episode. This was all very short lived however with her subsequent forays into Hollywood territory proving much less successful thus ending her fifteen minutes of fame.
Mrs. Bachchan teaching Oprah how to sari.
That same year, Naseeruddin Shah was also thrust into Hollywood starring opposite Sean Connery in the superhero summer blockbuster, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The film was a box office hit generating over $200 million in revenue but although Tinseltown sent the acclaimed thespian piles upon piles of scripts, Shah vehemently refused to do any of them saying that they all, for the most part, contain characters who are caricatures of Indian people.
Naseeruddin Shah looking like Capn’ Crunch with Sean Connery.
A few years after that, Irfan Khan starred alongside Angelina Jolie in A Mighty Heart and his footing in Hollywood has remained steady ever since appearing in Ang Lee’s critically acclaimed Life Of Pi and snatching lead roles in the blockbuster superhits, The Amazing Spiderman and Jurassic World.
So to um up, no, Sonam is not jumping on any bandwagon. Legions of international film stars from Vincent Cassel to Antonio Banderas, who were made famous first in their own countries’ film industries, found themselves later on at the Graumann’s Chinese theater premiering a global blockbuster, including, as I’ve pointed out, Bollywood actors. Sonam could very well join those legions soon.
Ash’s Hollywood career is unknown to us except her reply to Letterman about Indians staying with parents. (I liked Ash teaching Tyra some Bollywood moves in her show) BTW did Roberts really say that? I mean there are tons of such unverified ‘international’ quotes and stories around regrading Indian celebs.
Irrrfaaaaan’s accent though ughhhh can’t he speak like a normal Indian or just learn American?
Yes, Julia did say that.