"This is the helicopter shooting Akshay's drowning scene where he jumps in to the water and later Deepika saves him.
While shooting in Puglia, we gorged on some delicious food. The food is mainly Sea-Food but you also get some great Pizzas, excellent Lasagne, lovely pastas. I am sure they are now going to introduce a dish called 'Aakhri Pasta' in Italy as a tribute to my character.
As far as shopping goes they have a lot of these premium outlet malls where brands like Versace, Armani are sold at literally one fourth the price. There are also some unknown local labels which are really good. So we did some good shopping but the shopping is more in Bari than Puglia.
This was my second trip to Italy...the first time was for a film called Elaan directed by Vikram Bhatt with Arjun, John, Rahul Khanna and Mithun. That was extensively shot in North Italy. We even had this extensive boat chase in Venice. This time I got a chance to visit Puglia which is South Italy. I must say that this has been a truly amazing experience."
In the recently released comedy flick Housefull, besides the main leads, the one actor who stood out with his impeccable comic timing was Chunky Pandey. In what can be possibly described as one of the most hilarious characters of the film, 'Aakhri Pasta' played by Chunky, had the audience rolling with laughter. Bollywood Hungama's Nikhil Ramsubramaniam caught up with the affable actor who shared his experience shooting for the film in the beautiful location of Puglia, Italy through some really memorable pics. So over to you Chunky...
"We shot for Housefull at Puglia, Italy in August 2009. It was a 15 day schedule. Puglia is a beautiful little town north of the Bari airport. You land at the Bari airport and it's about an hour's drive from there. It's on the 'Heel' of Italy and very close to Naples and the famous Amalfi coast. The whole coastline is very dramatic, made up of white limestone and well etched up. In fact you don't even have sand...you have beautiful white pebbles instead of sand that make up the shoreline. You also have these beautiful white caves and can actually drive your boats right through them for a nice adventure. It's primarily a Christian country...people here are very religious, so you get to see a lot of beautiful churches and monasteries. In fact the airport itself has a chapel so you can pray before or after your flight. "
"The resort that we stayed in is a resort called Pugnochiuso. It's a 7 star resort that has 3 hotels and 5 private beaches. This pic is outside my hotel room in Pugnochiuso. It over looked the bay. You can see the coast far away and those beautiful caves."
Read More">“The resort has some beautiful beaches with pristine turquoise water. This is one of the main beaches. It’s a private beach belonging to the resort. No outsider is allowed here. Surprisingly this whole area is only dominated by Italian tourists. It’s not yet been discovered by foreigners yet. We were only the second Bollywood unitRead More
"The resort has some beautiful beaches with pristine turquoise water. This is one of the main beaches. It's a private beach belonging to the resort. No outsider is allowed here. Surprisingly this whole area is only dominated by Italian tourists. It's not yet been discovered by foreigners yet. We were only the second Bollywood unit to shoot there. The first film was Bachna Ae Haseeno in which they shot the 'Khuda Jaane' song featuring Ranbir and Deepika. They only filmed a song but we shot a good 20 - 30 minute portion of the film in Puglia. There is a small little fishing village near this resort called Vieste...it's a quaint little fishing village forgotten in time. It's got all white houses with blue roofs. Fishing is the main culture out there. It's also got some nice shopping and some great restaurants serving awesome sea food."
"We shot on a little island at some distance away from our resort. This pic is taken on the way to the island. You can see the two Sajids and me going to the island by boat. We are all dressed in casual wear as it was peak summer at that time."
