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MissMalini Exclusive: 10 Minutes with Abhay Deol (Courtesy Mela – NY’s New Entertainment Service)

MissMalini Exclusive: 10 Minutes with Abhay Deol (Courtesy Mela – NY’s New Entertainment Service)

Malini Agarwal

Abhay Deol was recently in New York to launch “Mela” a new entertainment service with Indian TV Channels and Movies (in HD) I’ve got pictures and an exclusive with Mr. D himself 🙂 Enjoy! xoxo

Abhay Deol, Mela Launch in New York City

MM: Hi Abhay! The last time I saw you in the flesh we were at Paul and Caoillin’s Wedding in Goa! How’s it Going?

AD: Yes I remember seeing you at the wedding, did  you stay on for long after that? Paul’s back, well he was a few weeks  ago but the guy is constantly on the move. That was a nice wedding  wasn’t it? I haven’t had a week off work since then!

MM: Before I ask you anything else I have to say I totally loved  ZNMD, epic! What was your fav part? And did anything funny happen off  screen on set? (Guessing lots since you three Mantal Bwyoz were together  all the time!)

AD: My fav scene in the film is when Farhan Akhtar meets his father and confronts  him. My fav part of the movie is the sky diving sequence and the bull  run sequence. Oh, and when Natasha show’s up and I have Laila in my  arms! Fun on set? Well the entire process was awesome, I don’t think  “fun” can fully describe the experience. We traveled all through Spain,  ate lots of exotic food, drank whenever we got the opportunity,  sometimes we cribbed about the long hours of work, and I tried to use my  charms on Zoya but most times that didn’t work. So we ate and drank  some more while working really hard!

Abhay Deol in New York

MM: How did you end up in NY for this launch? What’s the channel going to be like?

AD: Well Pooja hooked me up for the launch of Mela. She felt that I fit the  profile of the product and so spoke to the team about me. They liked the  idea, I was already in Toronto for the MMM festival. I showed up, they  briefed me of the product, I had an idea of it already but after the  brief I understood it much better and realized the potential of Mela to  fight piracy and give a distribution platform to all films from the  Indian subcontinent in the U.S. There’s a lot more to Mela, it’s  consumer friendly design, the cheap price for subscription, the High Def  quality etc etc. But it was the first two things I mentioned that excited  me most.

Mela Press Launch

MM: What are you working on now?

AD: Right now I’m gearing up for my next film, the working title of which is Shaadi of the Dead with Navdeep Singh. It’s about Zombie’s at a  Punjabi wedding. Also, my film Shanghai with Dibakar Banerjee is in post  production and by December I will get into the marketing of that film.  I’m not looking to shoot anything else anytime soon, but I’m reading  scripts, planning on taking it easy after Shanghai’s release.

MM:  You’re dating now but people love to marry you off and speculate, what do  you make of it and would you rather they just left that bit alone?

AD: HA HA your absolutely right, they do marry me off too soon! I’m cool with  speculation, it’s part of the job, what does get a bit frustrating is  when respectable papers write off speculation as news. It makes me  respect them less and I don’t like that. Ironic because I’ve had many  journalist’s tell me (essentially at the beginning of my career) that  it’s the celeb’s who give them stories because they want the publicity.  Now I have journalist’s tell me they need to sensationalize their news  to fight stiff competition from the many papers that are in circulation  today. It’s come a full circle and the table’s have turned. If something  affects me, I just take a deep breath and tell myself to have  compassion!

Abhay Deol

MM: What’s next Bollywood-wise?

AD: Refer to answer 4! I guess answer 4 is actually for question 6 so I will  answer question 4 at number 6. Here goes – I’m working on answering  your questions right now!

MM: What’s your all-time fav movie scene? Bollywood/Hollywood?

AD: Hmm…………… I don’t have favorites, especially when it comes down  to scenes. I do have films that have inspired me, and I aspire to do  work that could come close to the brilliance of those films. The  Shinning, Dr. Strange Love, Blade Runner, Brazil, Talk To Her, Children  Of Heaven, the list goes on. Most of it is foreign stuff. I guess I got  influenced by world cinema at an early age.

Abhay Deol

MM: Describe yourself in 3 words.

AD: I am Hungry…………….?

MM: What do you like to do when you chill out with your boys?

AD: I like to go sky diving. It calms my nerves……

Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara

MM: Can you tell me one thing nobody really knows about you?

AD: If I did that then everybody would know it! It’s good to hold  back a  little, keep the mystery alive. There, maybe that gave a little   something away.

MM: So are you finally Tweeting?

AD: I’M NOT ON TWITTER! Actually I am on Facebook  and my PR team handling my face book started to tweet my texts from  there. I told them to stop because I was writing for Facebook not  Twitter so they politely listened. At least I hope so, unless there has  been a tweet of mine recently. But then again, there are imposters on  Twitter too.

Abhay Deol

MM: Thanks Abhay, you’ve been super sweet to answer all my questions so diligently, love that 🙂 Oh and the last time I saw Paul he was at the Mercedes New SLK Class Launch looking happy shiny 🙂 xoxo
P.S. More pix of the Mela launch here.

Caoilinn and Paul McGlade at the Mercedes SLK launch party @ Zinc