This was actually on Friday I think, but this week has been so crazy, I missed it. But Himesh seems like a pretty lowkey dude and won’t care.
Himesh! A bit of a rockstar himself, tried to make it as a movie star, has a famous look of wearing a baseball hat. Generally kind of a silly dude. But on the other hand, I really really like his songs! He is primarily a singer, but does composing as well, and I am always surprised by how much I enjoy his soundtracks. If he stopped getting married, and having plastic surgery, and wearing baseball hats, and just wrote songs, he could be one of my favorites. He’s probably one of your favorites too, you just don’t realize it.
Sanam Teri Kasam, all him!
Prem Ratan Dhan Payo, with the irresistable title song
“Tu Bichdann” from Son of Sardaar, one of my favorites from him
“Bol Bachchan” which is just crazy fun
“Teri Meri Prem Kahaani” which is just delightfully lyrical
Fun different sound with “Chakna Chakna”
Kat’s breakthrough song, “Just Chill”
Taarzan: The Wonder Car which is weirdly one of my favorite soundtracks! Especially this song, “Ooo La La”
Tere Naam, big breakthrough soundtrack, with classic “O Jaana”
And finally, his first big song, “Odhli Chunariya”!!!
dontcallitbollywood 
I love Sanam Teri Kasam soundtrack. Every song is great.
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Yes! If Himesh just really focused, I think he could crank out a ton of soundtracks that are really great.
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“Just chill” is the one song that just immediately starts to play in my head.
And Himesh is just sooo silly. I stopped taking him seriously after I was an extra in that stupid, stupid movie of his. And that was pretty early on in my fan career.
I mean, it was great fun to dance and cheer in that church they had rented to be their concert location, and I met other fans and chatted with them all day. And I wrote about it in my friends ‘ Bollywood magazine and rediscovered the joy in that. But the film itself was just so deeply stupid that I remember nothing about it except how stupidly it treated the German police.
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Please tell us more. The movie was Aap ka Suroor? How was Himesh?
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You’ve actually seen that movie? Not something I would have recommended.
I think the star of a movie is always the one who spends the shortest stretches of time on the set. Shoot one take, then let the background dancers rehearse again. So Himesh was basically a guy in a baseball cap up there on the stage, no closer than he would have been at a real concert. But the music was playback and only snippets at a time.
We were supposed to be yelling a word from the lyrics at some point, but come on: This was a crowd of Germans , mostly just generic extras from an agency. And even those Bollywood fans who had been fanatic enough to travel two hours by train to be there hadn’t had enough time yet to learn the rudiments of Hindi.
Most of the extras had followed the agency’s specifications to dress for a concert. I was wearing a vaguely Indian style shirt and carrying a cardboard with the logo of our online Bollywood fan community – what I would have brought for a real Himesh concert.
Using a church for a venue was actually a pretty cool idea. I seem to remember that those stained glass windows did look pretty impressive in the finished film, too. Still I wonder who agreed to renting it out. And: It looked much fuller on film than it actually was.
So yeah, us Bollywood fans stuck together, waited around a lot and took selfies with the background dancers. (Those must actually still have been on real film, I know I only got my first digital camera when I started working as a journalist. How time flies!)
What else do you want to know? I’ve tried to dig up my article again, but I can’t actually immediately find it anymore.
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I ALWAYS THOUGHT THE CROWDS WEREN’T YELLING REAL THINGS!!!!! I watch those movies and think “half the people here don’t even know what is happening”.
A friend of a friend was in Dhoom 3 for a half second. They wanted circus performers in the background so reached out to local Chicago circus folks and just had them stand on the steps in front of the Shedd Aquarium and do random circus things. The friend of a friend was not an Indian film fan and had no idea what was happening, it was just a job. I doubt she even saw the stars or the director, just stood there and got filmed and then left.
On Wed, Jul 28, 2021 at 2:18 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Well, the other end of the spectrum is the star-struck white girl in the MDK medley. So I’m not sure which is more distracting.
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Thank you!
I haven’t seen the movie (I have a soft spot for Himesh but I’m not that devoted to actually watch Aap Ka Suroor 😉 ) but I was curious how was your exepirence, and how Himesh behave during filming.
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Oh oh! There is an amazing video review of the sequel! I wish I could find one of the movie you were in, but no luck:
On Wed, Jul 28, 2021 at 12:50 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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