Bollywood has come to Oxford this week, as the university is to feature in the set of an upcoming movie.
The film, entitled \’Desi Boyz\’, is a Bollywood action comedy directed by Rohit Dhawan.
It stars Akshay Kumar as a new student at Trinity College, with John Abraham, Amitabh Bachchan, Deepika Padukone and Chitrangada Singh all having leading roles.
The Physics lecture theatres, Sciama and Lindemann, alongside other areas in the university, are being used in the production.
Many details of the film are being kept secret. However, one scene features Kumar arriving at the doors of Balliol College with a backpack and suitcase.
The filming, which begun in Oxford on 14th March, is to continue until next Saturday, when the set will move to London. Shooting will also take place in Mumbai.
Andrew Steele, a physicist at Christ Church, said in his online blog, \”it was only when I approached the Clarendon Lab, my place of work, that I realised quite how serious this was.\”
He wrote of \”triple-parked vans chock-full of scaffolding tubes and cable were blocked in by posh rides with besuited execs leaning on them, nattering in Hindi and smoking cigars.\”
Emails were sent to Oxford students last week giving them the opportunity to star as one of the hundreds of extras in the film. One sent to students at Lincoln College said that it was \”urgently in need of white extras\”.
\’Desi Boyz\’, Rohit Dhawan\’s directorial debut, is expected to be released in late November 2011.
