After watching Gangster, I fell in love with the way director Anurag Basu projects his characters," gushed Shilpa Shetty, who is all set to do his next film Metro. "He had approached me for Metro earlier, but I could not do it then. After watching Gangster, I knew I just had to do it."
And why not? Basu's earlier film, Murder, was one of the biggest hits in the year of its release.
Basu, who worked with the Mahesh Bhatt team on Murder, Basu will now work with UTV for Metro.
Speaking about the film, actor KK who plays Shilpa's husband in it, said, "The story is about the changing colour of relationships and emotions in city life. Each of the characters contributes to the theme. There are different sub-stories interlinked with each other."
Anurag said, "Metro is about how today's big city life has its own effect on everybody. There is stress, long working hours, success, failure and it has effect on relationships and personal life. So my film is a mirror of today's society in any big city."
So is it largely about Mumbai?
"I am shooting it in Mumbai but a person from Bhopal would also identify with it and so would a person from Chandigarh or Bangalore. It's about life in any metro
Speaking about the casting, Anurag said, "While writing the story, I thought about the people who would fit into the characters. I like Shilpa Shetty. I have always wanted to cast her in a film of mine. Her character in this movie has an edgy side. I wanted an actress who is mature, not very young and has some weight to her personality. Shilpa plays a married woman, whose marriage is falling apart. She has everything one would want in a marriage. She has a sea-facing flat. The couple once decided to buy a sea-facing flat, one day and they did. Nine years into the marriage, they do not even look at the sea. She gets a hair cut and the husband does not even notice."
Shiney Ahuja plays a person who cannot cope up with fast city life. He was a brilliant student in college who wants to make it big in life. But when he has to face the world, he cannot do anything. He is not even able to buy a one-room-kitchen for his family.
Where did the idea come from? "I have been writing short stories about the people I meet and know. In this film, the characters are inspired from my near and dear ones. I have a cousin who studied hard and was very much into making her career. One day she realised she was 30, has not been loved, and does not know what to do with her life. Konkana's character in the film is like that. When I narrated the story to people, they identified with it. See you were also smiling. Everybody relates to it. It's a very interesting story."
So is he bored with metro life? "Mumbai is very exciting. One must enjoy life. Everybody is running here. They know what they are living onÂ… but not what they are living for."
