Madhuri Dixit signs on the dotted line, will make her Marathi debut

When Tejas Prabha Vijay Deoskar and Devashree Shivadekar stepped into a room where Madhuri Dixit was waiting to hear their narration there was a nervous silence initially But the good kind of nerves we are told Leading to that moment was a series of serendipitous eventsDevashree Shivadekar and Tejas Deoskar will direct Madhuri Dixit in her debut Marathi film PicSameeracircu00c2u0080u00c2u0088MarkandeDeoskar 34 who had made two Marathi feature films Ajinkya and Prem Sutra is relatively new to the industry while Shivadekar had been living in the US for over seven years and therefore couldnt have been more cut off from the Marathi industry But in February this year the two met by chance through a common friend I was here on vacation toggling with ideas to write a film when I met Tejas He happened to share with me a oneline story for a film and I was hooked But at that time we did not imagine that wed actually be doing the film with the Madhuri Dixit recalls the 30yearold who did her masters in screenwriting from New York Film AcademyAs farfetched as it seemed Deoskar was always clear that he wanted no one but Dixit for his film A fortunate connection with the superstars PR Reshma Shetty gave him a slight ray of hope We sent a fourpage story to her without keeping our hopes high You can imagine our surprise when we got a call back two days later Madhuri wanted a narration of the script Recalling the moment they met Dixit a gushing Shivadekar says For the first few seconds we could not stop looking at her She has that effect on you But of course we soon reminded ourselves that we were there for a purpose It was a doordie momentOnce the narration was done there was a pause of 10 minutes No one in the room said a word Madhuri was pokerfaced as ever After what seemed like an eternity she said well get back to you Deoskar says I was sure at that time that she would say no Tejas however did not want to assume yet says his writing partner They waited outside contemplating and speculating for nearly half an hour when they got a call from Dixits team saying she had liked the script It was still a long way to go till she signed the dotted line Two more script reading sessions followed during with the writer duo had done narrations with 70 people before sitting with Madhuri each time We did narrations for all age groups between 16 and 70 people who were not connected to industry We wanted a lay persons opinion By the fifth draft we knew we had accomplished somethingDeoskar wont give much away about the story It is a true story something that was in fact published in a newspaper abroad two years ago Its the journey of selfdiscovery of a woman in her early 40s and there was no one other than Madhuri who could have done this film Dixit finally signed on the dotted line in August and soon after Shetty her PR told Deoskar that this was the first time Madhuri had read a script and called back personallyWhile roping in a big star is a great kick it can come with its own set of challenges Shes extremely dignified and accommodating as a person who has relaxed several protocols to adjust to the budget and scale of the film This is not Bollywood after all Had that not have been the case yes things could have gotten burdensome Deoskar saysThe film goes on the floors in December and aims for a summer release next year These days of course the duo meets the star often We have frequent discussions about the story characterisation technicalities etc We are also doing a few workshops with her She is very receptive as a person and as an actor and with each meeting I feel we are only getting better