Getting offers for hero roles now, says Sonu Sood
Mumbai, Dec 19: Bollywood actor Sonu Sood has said filmmakers have started to approach him with lead roles in their films due to his philanthropic work for migrant workers during the coronavirus-induced lockdown.
Earlier this year, Sood, known for films like "Dabangg", "Jodhaa Akbar", and "Simmba", catapulted to the national spotlight for his work in helping migrants reach their homes during the lockdown.
During a virtual session of "We The Women" on Friday, Sood opened up about how 2020 has changed his personal and professional life, especially his image of an actor, who has previously played villain in films such as "Simmba", "R Rajkumar" and "Arundhati".
"I am getting all hero roles now. I have got four-five brilliant scripts. Let's hope... It's new beginnings, new innings, it is a new pitch and it will be nice fun," the actor said.
He recalled that during the shooting of his upcoming Telugu movie "Acharya", South superstar Chiranjeevi expressed reservations about hitting him for a scene, given his new found image of a hero.
"We were doing an action sequence and Chiranjeevi sir said, You being in the film is a big problem for us because I can't hit you in the action scene'. He said if he does that people will curse him.
"There was another sequence where he was placing his feet on me but that too was reshot," Sood said.
The 47-year-old actor also revealed that the makers of another Telugu film have changed the script according to his new image, meaning that he will have to shoot his portions again.
During the lockdown, Sood had launched an initiative to help reunite migrant workers who were stranded in Mumbai with their families in distant corners of the country.
He and his team rolled out a toll-free number and a WhatsApp helpline to connect with the workers and then arrange transportation - buses, trains and even chartered flights as well as food for the stranded migrants.
Sood believes that there was some force working behind him and guiding him during the lockdown period.
"Blessings of my parents worked and I was able to connect with thousands of people. There was some kind of inner voice that made me do what I did. I didn't know how I would do it but once we started, everything just happened, he said.
Joining the actor in the session, titled "The Men We Love", was Michelin-star chef Vikas Khanna, who has also been working round-the-clock to help the needy since the pandemic hit India.
Khanna, sitting thousands of miles away in New York, launched a food distribution drive Feed India' that steadily reached millions across the country.
"Catering companies were shutting down and so were restaurants, even I was supposed to open two restaurants this year.
"It was all affecting me. I wanted to do something we started in a small way. We put everything on the backburner and focused on this," Khanna said.
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Israel says rabbi who went missing in UAE was killed
Tel Aviv, Nov 24: Israel said Sunday that the body of an Israeli-Moldovan rabbi who went missing in the United Arab Emirates has been found after he was killed in what it described as a “heinous antisemitic terror incident.”
The statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Israel “will act with all means to seek justice with the criminals responsible for his death.” There was no immediate comment from the UAE.
Zvi Kogan, 28, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi who went missing on Thursday, ran a Kosher grocery store in the futuristic city of Dubai, where Israelis have flocked for commerce and tourism since the two countries forged diplomatic ties in the 2020 Abraham Accords.
The agreement has held through more than a year of soaring regional tensions unleashed by Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack into southern Israel. But Israel's devastating retaliatory offensive in Gaza and its invasion of Lebanon, after months of fighting with the Hezbollah group, have stoked anger among Emiratis, Arab nationals and others living in the the UAE.
Iran, which supports Hamas and Hezbollah, has also been threatening to retaliate against Israel after a wave of airstrikes Israel carried out in October in response to an Iranian ballistic missile attack.
The Emirati government did not respond to a request for comment.
Early Sunday, the UAE's state-run WAM news agency acknowledged Kogan's disappearance but pointedly did not acknowledge he held Israeli citizenship, referring to him only as being Moldovan. The Emirati Interior Ministry described Kogan as being “missing and out of contact.”
“Specialised authorities immediately began search and investigation operations upon receiving the report,” the Interior Ministry said.
Netanyahu told a regular Cabinet meeting later Sunday that he was “deeply shocked” by Kogan's disappearance and death. He said he appreciated the cooperation of the UAE in the investigation and said that ties between the two countries would continue to be strengthened.
Israel's largely ceremonial president, Isaac Herzog, condemned the killing and thanked Emirati authorities for "their swift action." He said he trusts they “will work tirelessly to bring the perpetrators to justice.”
Kogan was an emissary of the Chabad Lubavitch movement, a prominent and highly observant branch of ultra-Orthodox Judaism based in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood in New York City. It said he was last seen in Dubai. The UAE has a burgeoning Jewish community, with synagogues and businesses catering to kosher diners.
The Rimon Market, a Kosher grocery store that Kogan managed on Dubai's busy Al Wasl Road, was shut Sunday. As the wars have roiled the region, the store has been the target of online protests by supporters of the Palestinians. Mezuzahs on the front and the back doors of the market appeared to have been ripped off when an Associated Press journalist stopped by on Sunday.
Kogan's wife, Rivky, is a US citizen who lived with him in the UAE. She is the niece of Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, who was killed in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
The UAE is an autocratic federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula and is also home to Abu Dhabi. Local Jewish officials in the UAE declined to comment.
While the Israeli statement did not mention Iran, Iranian intelligence services have carried out past kidnappings in the UAE.
Western officials believe Iran runs intelligence operations in the UAE and keeps tabs on the hundreds of thousands of Iranians living across the country.
Iran is suspected of kidnapping and later killing British Iranian national Abbas Yazdi in Dubai in 2013, though Tehran has denied involvement. Iran also kidnapped Iranian German national Jamshid Sharmahd in 2020 from Dubai, taking him back to Tehran, where he was executed in October.
