Both Darsheel Safary and Kareena Kapoor have one thing in common. No, not Saif Ali Khan, but Aamir Khan.

Darsheel, who with his rocking performance and bucktoothed grin, won over the audiences of Taare Zameen Par, even had producer-director Aamir eating out of his hands. Aamir readily admitted defeat in all his pre-release interviews and said that Darsheel was the hero of the film.

Now, Kareena Kapoor may be on the arm of Saif Ali Khan, but admits to being a die-hard fan of another Khan, Aamir.

It is another matter that Kareena went on record in her early stardom days that she would give anything to star with Shah Rukh Khan, who she claimed was a peformer without parallel.

Okay, so Aamir adores Darsheel, and Kareena adores Aamir. But this wonderful equation works out like this: Darsheel has said in his latest interview that he adores Kareena!

Being nominated under the Best Actor category at the Filmfare Awards, little Darsheel Safary’s moving performance had him competing with four adult superstars, including Shah Rukh, whom in an earlier interview he precociously dismissed as no competition!

Ask all those who have watched Taare Zameen Par which actor rules their heart and the answer is Darsheel Safary. Of course, SRK is not one to give any quarter to anyone, adult or child, and bagged the Best Actor award anyway.

In a recent television interview Darsheel candidly admitted that he was a Kareena Kapoor fan and the one thinbg he was looking forward to, after Taare Zameen Par, was to meet the vivacious actress in person at some award function.

After Darsheel, it is Kareena’s turn with Aamir as she will be acting opposite the pint sized superstar in Raju Hirani’s next film. Reportedly Kareena is very excited about being paired opposite the intense Khan.

Kareena has worked with SRK and Salman and now Saif, too. But never with Aamir before. Her elder sister Karisma had paired magnificently with Aamir in Raja Hindustani years ago. With Raju’s film, she should make a fabulous pair with Aamir.

Trade insiders are equally axcited at the prospect and are touting the Aamir-Kareena duo to be bigger than the first-time pairing of Aamir and Kajol in Fanaa. If Kajol was making a kind of comeback as numero uno, today it is Kareena who is ruling the roost.

Yashraj Films ’ forthcoming venture Tashan not only required the acting credentials of Kareena Kapoor but also a change in her looks.

Kareena started losing weight for the film and since then, her size zero has attracted much attention.

Kareena is quoted as saying in a report, “Before this film started I knew that for this character to look different than what I have done before, I have to train really hard to kind of change the shape of my body.”

“A lot of actresses abroad do that, they work on one film at a time, change their look for a particular film body wise as well, people lose weight or put on weight as required for the character. For ‘Tashan’ it was a conscious effort to change my body structure and work towards it because I wanted to look lean. The character involves a lot of action, and I think a lean girl doing action always looks much better.”

“I trained really hard for about eight to nine months and was on a strict diet regime because that’s the only way this will look different from every other film. The response has been phenomenal. I am actually enjoying it and have got used to it.”

Scheduled to release on April 25, ‘Tashan’ also stars Anil Kapoor , Akshay Kumar and Saif Ali Khan .

Katrina Kaif is reported to have bagged another 2 films, Rs 6 Crore deal with a unspecified corporate house, similar to her deal with Studio 18, consolidating her position as one of Bollywood’s top paid actresses.

After having wowed audiences in 2007 with hits like Namastey London, Apne, Partner and Welcome, Katrina Kaif clinched a six crore, two film deal with Studio 18 in February 2008.

More recently, Shree Ashtavinayak agreed to pay Katrina a whopping Rs 1.5 crore for a short role in their under production thriller Blue. The role, that includes an item song, required 10 days of shooting.

Katrina’s paycheck in Blue reportedly inspired Kareena Kapoor to demand a whopping Rs 6 crore from Shree Ashtavinayak for her next film with them, reneging on the price negotiated between them earlier. The film directed by Rumi Jaffery features Kareena and John Abraham in lead roles.

Kareena and Shree Ashtavinayak are working under a three film deal, of which Jab We Met was the first.

Parag Desai, media consultant for Ashtavinyak denies that the deal between Kareena and Shree Ashtavinayak is being re-negotiated.

“We have signed Kareena after JWM for a three films deal, so revising the price is totally out of the question. It’s just baseless rumors doing the rounds,” he says.

Aishwarya Rai became the highest paid Bollywood actress recently, after she negotiated a Rs 4 Crore paycheck for her role in the forthcoming Sci-Fi thriller Robot opposite Rajnikant.

Move over comic capers. With Abbas-Mustan’s ‘Race’ hitting the marquee, adrenaline-pumping action flicks with jaw-dropping stunts are back at the Indian box-office and the film industry is betting big on it.

It is not just the gentlemen who are rolling up their sleeves and taking the plunge from skyscrapers but the ladies too are following suit.

Whether it is home grown Mumbai-based studio producers or their Hollywood counterparts trying to find a foothold in India, action thrillers are the latest fad. And for the mobile gaming industry, Bollywood’s re- awakened interest in the genre is godsend.

‘Race’, this year’s first true-blue action thriller that released Friday, got off to a flying start with collections soaring in multiplexes. The archetypical Abbas-Mustan movie was a welcome change for an audience that has been thirsting for adrenaline rush.

Starring Saif Ali Khan, Akshaye Khanna, Anil Kapoor, Bipasha Basu, Katrina Kaif and Sameera Reddy, the movie is an action thriller and murder mystery.

‘Race’ has heroes jumping from air balloons, well-toned female actors running besides cars that are going up in flames and state-of-the-art pyrotechnics by action director Allan Amin.

The grapevine is that Saif went up to the height of 200 feet in an air balloon and did bungee jumping for a scene in the film. The ladies in the film also had their piece of action.

Soon Saif will be seen in another action-packed film – ‘Tashan’ – that is equally high on style.

‘Action is an intricate genre now. It is meant for the audience who appreciate ‘Die Hard 4′ and enjoy the Bond flicks.

Though Indian films are yet to match the international budgets, we had to start from somewhere,’ said Anubhav Sinha, who was the man behind last year’s action thriller ‘Cash’.

For long Bollywood did not have the concept of genre films. Most films were family dramas with other elements like romance, action, comedy, etc, thrown in. Genres like sci-fi, horror, mystery, war, espionage did not exist in Bollywood. As a result we have not had too many nail-biting suspense flicks, or thrillers that truly thrill.

A sea change has happened with audiences willing to see genre films and not the something-for-everyone omnibus films that Bollywood generally makes. And action is one genre that is fast catching on.

Even actors who started off as action heroes and later deviate into comedy and family dramas are coming back for more plain and simple action. One such example is industry’s original action hero – Akshay Kumar – who after a string of comedies will be seen in hardcore action-packed thrillers.

The actor, who started his career as a Karate teacher, plays a Hollywood stuntman in Sajid Nadiadwala’s ‘Kambakth Ishq’ which is being shot in Universal Studios. It is the first Indian film to be shot within Universal Studios.

Apart from that, Akshay will be seen in Nikhil Advani’s action flick ‘Chandni Chowk to China’ that is funded by a Hollywood studio. It remains to be seen whether these will be a concoction of all of Bollywood favourite elements or belong to action genre alone.

Not to be left behind, the ladies are taking to action like never before. Aishwarya Rai showed off her sword-wielding skills in a Hollywood film, ‘The Last Legion’, and in ‘Jodhaa Akbar’. Now, it is the turn of other Bollywood belles to call the shots.

Bipasha Basu, Esha Deol, Deepika Padukone, Priyanka Chopra, Kareena Kapoor, Tanushree Dutta and Koena Mitra are all rearing to fight it out.

After Priyanka stood her ground against Shah Rukh Khan in ‘Don’, she will be seen in a daredevil act in upcoming ‘Love Story: 2050′ as well as ‘Drona’ in which she plays Abhishek Bachchan’s bodyguard.

Not to be left behind, Kareena too will be seen as a butt-kicking babe in soon-to-be-released ‘Tashan’.

Director duo Abbas-Mustan is planning a heroine-based action film to be directed by Rohit Jugraj. There’s a growing market for action-packed roles for ladies now and the audience has become more open and encouraging to such varied roles for girls.

Shilpa Shetty has gone many steps further and announced her foray into production with a big budget action-comedy. The winner of last year’s Britain reality TV show – ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ – is investing her riches in a two-heroine project.

While Shilpa will be playing one part, she is in the process of signing on another big Bollywood heroine for the other. The film will be produced under Shilpa’s production house S2 Global Productions with some top-of- the-line international technicians as part of her crew.

Kareena Kapoor is surely the undisputed No.1 actress in Bollywood! The actress, who is fresh after the stupendous success of Jab We Met, has the best of banners in her kitty.

The actress is busy with projects like Tashan, with Akshay and Saif, Kambakht Ishq, with Akshay Kumar, Golmaal Returns starring Ajay Devgan, Agent Vinod with Saif, Ashtavinayak Banners’ next, with John Abraham and Karan Johar’s next film.

Apart from her acting brilliance, Kareena, the ‘Queen Bee’, endorses a list of products, such as Globus, ICI paints, Head & Shoulders Shampoo, Boroplus cream and Citizen watches.

Reports are now ripe that Kareena has her sights aimed at Hollywood too..

A source reveals, “Kareena has been high on the popularity stakes for sometime now. The super success of Jab We Met has catapulted her into the top league. Hollywood is definitely looking at her.

One hears that she is going to be in Los Angeles in May to shoot for Sajid Nadiadwala’s Kambakth Ishq. She has been offered two top line Hollywood projects and she will be listening to the scripts.

A hush hush meeting has been planned in May when she is there to finalize the details.”

Well, a stepping stone to greater success seems right around the corner for Kareena in the form of Hollywood projects!

Bollywood star Saif Ali Khan has finally admitted dating Kareena Kapoor.

At Manish Malhotra’s fashion show for the Lakme Fashion Week, Saif admitted to his relationship with Kareena saying, “Yes, we are not exactly shouting from the rooftops but yes, clearly we are together. And we are happy together.”

The couple was spotted together in public for the first time.

Reports of a romantic linkup between 27-year-old Kareena and 37-year-old Saif first surfaced while the two were shooting for Yashraj Films Tashan on locations in Ladakh and Rajasthan.

Then came the news of Kareena celebrating her 27th birthday last month with a small party for select friends including Saif.
Saif and Kareena also hit a nightclub in Delhi on October 5 where when a photographer clicked Saif and Kareena hugging after which they bullied him and deleted the photograph.

Saif had been single for months now, since his break-up with girlfriend Rozza , and has, since, been linked to Bipasha Basu and Dia Mirza .

As their romance intensified, Kareena unceremoniously dumped Shahid Kapur August end while he was shooting in Toronto, Canada.

However, Shahid who had been stoically maintaining silence for sometime also quipped on the sets of the Sony show Jhalak Dikhla Ja in the course of an interview, “For all ye girls out there, I am single and ready to mingle!”
Shahid’s next release will be Jab We Met opposite Kareena.

Kareena Kapoor has recently been looking very slim and slender. Some people say she might be turning anorexic.

Just a year back, we saw slightly chubby Kareena dancing with Shah Rukh Khan in Don. A year later, the actress has slimmed down, turned vegetarian and lost lots of weight.

In fact, the actress has begun to look so thin that rumours have begun floating around that she is suffering from anorexia (lack of appetite).

Kareena, however, laughs off these rumours and says that she has lost weight for her role in the Yashraj film Tashan . Bebo is required to do lots of stunts in the film. That is why she has to get in shape.

So determined has Kareena been to lose weight for the film that she has hired a yoga trainer from Bharat Thakur’s school. Everyday, Bebo religiously does Yoga for at least an hour.

Bebo has also roped in a dietician called Roojuta who helps her in following a healthy diet routine.

Kareena says she will keep off her favourite Chinese food and also the junk food till ‘Tashan’ is completely shot. The movie will most likely be wrapped up in November this year.

The two Bollywood stars will lend their voices to an animation film.

At last, animation films are slowly finding a place in Bollywood. While in Hollywood, an animation movie like ‘Happy Feet’ can give James Bond a run for money at the box-office, Indian film industry has yet to explore this genre.

Save for a few films like ‘Hanuman’, ‘Lord Krishna’ or ‘Ramayan’, there have hardly been any memorable animated movies from our industry.

But now more people are venturing into this field.

The latest is actor Jugal Hansraj, who is all set to make an animation film for the prestigious banner Yashraj Films.

Reports have it that the movie will feature voices of Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor. The two will lend their voices to the characters of a dog and a bitch.

Just last year, we saw Shah Rukh Khan and his son Aryan dubbing for the Hindi version of ‘The Incredibles’.