From UK to Bollywood -- new place for British hotties

Bollywood may be an Indian industry but it does provide ample opportunities for talent from the world over. While every year the number of foreign models and aspiring actors is on the rise, there seems to be one country which dominates in numbers. Looking at the past couple of years, it is pretty clear that United Kingdom is the place most of Bollywood’s firang connections stem from.

Filmmakers have been always fascinated with firangs, but there has been a prominent spurt in the number of British aspirants wanting to try their luck here.

The most obvious and popular example would be that of actor Katrina Kaif. The half Indian actress had a low profile debut but managed to work her way up the ladder to become one of the most sought after actresses in Bollywood. Amy Jackson, former British model who is gearing to make her debut in Bollywood with Ek Deewana Tha, says she is fascinated by Bollywood. “People in England, really like Bollywood. They are all aware of Hindi cinema and this is definitely one of the biggest film industries in the world. We at least have one theatre in England playing a Hindi film every week,” she says talking about England’s fascination with Bollywood.

Trade analyst Amod Mehra too explains this phenomenon. “There is a lot of Hindi speaking population in the UK and Bollywood films are very big there. British cinema too is very particular about their casting so when these girls do not get a chance anywhere else they try their luck with Bollywood. Anyway Mumbai is crazy about anything firang, so it makes things easier for them as well.”

A veteran producer too agrees that  talent from UK is very popular. “Actors like Jiah Khan, Liza Lazarus (Veer), Alice Patten (Rang De Basanti) and Rachel Shelly (Lagaan) are all from UK. London has been pretty popular when it comes to Hindi films and those girls usually also fit in pretty well. Not just that, we have a lot of films based in London or films that use the country as the backdrop.”