Javed Akhtar on starry tantrums, entourage costs

Javed Akhtar is known to not mince his words and is quite vocal about his opinions about everything. Recently, the rise in the costs of the entourage of the stars – from their hairdressers, make-up artists,

fitness trainers

– has been the talk of the town. Many producers and industry insiders have slammed this and said that it’s one of the reasons why the budget of movies is so high and they are not making profits when the collections at the box office are not at par.
Now veteran screenwriter Javed Akhtar has also shed some light on it.

He spoke about it in a funny way as he said, “Yeh utna nahi tha jitna aaj tak hai ke three vans chahiye – ek van mein excercise karte hai, ek van mein khana ban raha hota hai, teesri van mein baithke khaate hai. Unka woh aadmi jo baal thik karta rehta hai, unka woh 75,000 per day…arey yaar, humein maloom hota toh hum wahi kaam seekhte (These

starry tantrums

were not so much earlier as they are now. For instance, I’ve heard now they need three vans – one for excercising, one for cooking their meals also. They have a hairstylist who charge Rs 75,000 per day. If I had known about the exorbitant fee that stars pay, I would have learned hairstylist’s skills).”
Akhtar further added that earlier stars would come late on sets but they were not this demanding. “This was not there earlier. People were irregular or not so disciplined but it was not of this sort.There was not this kind of money that time,” said Akhtar.
During this chat session, Akhtar also admitted that he also faces a

writer’s block

sometimes. Recently, one saw a documentary made on Javed Akhtar and Salim Javed’s iconic pairing as writers which got a lot of love from the internet.