Chai and shooting with Julia Roberts

MIRZAPUR - It is a village market scene. Donkeys carrying loads of earthen pots pass by, a few loitering cows are munching on grass, camels and goats are by the roadside - and next to a chai stall is Hollywood star Julia Roberts chatting with her co-star, shooting for “Eat Pray Love”, as the hot Indian sun beats down.

The Pretty Woman was shooting Sunday with co-star Richard Jenkins for director Ryan Murphy’s film in this Haryana village, around eight km from Pataudi, where she shot her earlier scenes.

Roberts, 41, was wearing loose green pyjamas and had wrapped a green printed stole around her. Her blonde hair was tied in a pony tail. Jenkins was in t-shirt and trousers.

“We are not going to Cherrapunji (Meghalaya) for the other scenes as was scheduled earlier, but are heading to Bali,” a source close to the film unit told IANS at the scene.

“The Bali shoot will be our last outdoor shooting spot,” the source said, adding that they would wrap up shooting in November. The film is expected to be released in 2011, she added.

Meanwhile, Roberts after giving one shot went to her vanity van. She emerged after a while and posed for the shutterbugs present, waved to them and went to give another shot.

An inadvertent interruption to the shooting had everyone on the sets guffawing.

Just as director Ryan Murphy said “Rolling camera” for a shot, two donkeys started braying. Everybody laughed and some unit hands went to shoo the animals. The donkeys were not part of the village scene. They were tied outside a farmer’s house adjacent to the set.

That was not the end of it.

Just as the donkeys shut up, a dog started up a whine.

The unit hands incharge of crowd management went “shoo”, “chup”, to make the crowd shut up.

To erect the village market scene around 500 people were employed, the source informed.

Roberts is staying at the Pataudi Palace hotel with her three kids - four-and-a-half-year-old twins Hazel and Phinnaeus and two-year-old son Henry — and their nannies since Sep 17.

She has been shooting the India scenes of her new film with her Hollywood colleagues Billy Crudup, Javier Bardem and Richard Jenkins, under director Ryan Murphy’s supervision. She will be in Pataudi till Oct 9.

Roberts is playing author Elizabeth Gilbert, on whose book the film is based.