Priyanshu Chatterjee to act in ‘Florida Road’

NEW DELHI - Priyanshu Chatterjee is the latest Bollywood actor to sign up for a foreign project - he will be seen in Durban-based American director Brad Glass’ “Florida Road”, which is about how two generations of an Indian family clash over values.

“It’s about three brothers. I play the role of the eldest brother who is a successful businessman but very arrogant. But an incident changes his life,” Priyanshu told IANS.

Another Indian actor, Ashmit Patel, also features in the movie, which is expected to release by the year-end.

Asked how he landed the role, Priyanshu said: “The casting director of the film was looking for a few Indian faces since the film is about an Indian family. They came across my pictures, saw my previous works and gave me a call. After a few meetings, I was on board.”

“Florida Road” also has Indian actors Vipin Sharma, Smita Jayakar and South African artistes Vicky Davis and Cokey Falkow.

Priyanshu, who has featured in Bollywood films like “Tum Bin” (2001), “Pinjar” (2003)and “Bhoothnath” (2008) among others, revealed that he had been approached for another international project earlier.

“I was offered another very good role in a Hollywood venture, but because of clashing dates I could not go ahead with that. The film had to be shot in Italy,” said the actor.

Even though Priyanshu made his acting debut eight years ago, he has done very few films. Why?

“I know the volume of my work is less and I would have wanted to do more films. But I can’t do just any role. That’s the reason why I have done less crappy films. As far as my absence from the public eye is concerned, that’s because I’m publicity shy - something which is not considered good nowadays,” he reasoned.

Priyanshu said that another reason for doing few Hindi films was that he wanted to explore regional cinema as well.

“I have been constantly working. It’s just that it has not been only Hindi films…I have also done Bengali films. This way I experience different working styles and get to know so many other things,” the actor said.

Priyanshu’s next Bollywood project is “Chintuji”, which has Rishi Kapoor in the title role and is slated to release Sep 4.