After being in Los Angeles, USA, for almost 15 years, Gulshan Grover’s son Sanjay is relocating to Mumbai to pursue a career in filmmaking. Grover Jr, who studied at American School of Bombay along with star kids like Tiger Shroff, Sonam Kapoor, Sooraj Pancholi and Athiya Shetty among several others, moved to LA to do a post graduation course in Business of Hollywood and Business of Entertainment from UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles). In spite of the long distance, Gulshan, being a single parent and sharing a close bond with his son, would fly there every month to spend time with him. Now, Sanjay has decided to quit his job with MGM Studios (Metro Goldwyn Mayer) as Director, Special Projects and move here.
Sanjay says, “I always felt that our cinema has possibilities of reaching out even further and generating more business, revenue and entertaining newer homes and ethnicities in the world.” He adds, “I’m here to make movies and everything related to cinema with my intentions of learning and adding/combining the advantages of me being involved in producing, distributing, financing and creatives of films made by large studios in Hollywood.”
Sanjay’s first venture in the city is the biopic of 22-year-old Kashmiri student and footballer Afshan Ashiq, who got into a controversy when pictures of her pelting stones at Indian security forces last April went viral. Titled Hope Solo, to be helmed by Manish Harishankar, it is being written by Saiwyn Quadras (Mary Kom, Neerja and Parmanu: The Story Of Pokhran). And Sanjay, who has seen Athiya Shetty play a lot of football during their school days together, has brought her on board to play the protagonist. Besides her skills at the game, what also saw the Hero and Mubarakan actress bag the part is her similar body structure like Afshan. Athiya has already begun practicing the game and learning the Kashmiri dialect as part of her prep for the movie.
Interestingly, post his studies, Sanjay was personally handpicked by Mary Parent, chairperson MGM Motion Pictures Worldwide, to work from the studios LA headquarters in diverse areas like distribution, finance and producing films. He got an opportunity to work on movies like The Hobbit, The Zookeeper, Hot Tub Time Machine, Fame and David Fincher’s Creed, that not only appealed to Indian audiences but he also had a shot at his work being viewed by the international audiences.
Described by the studio’s top bosses as “born in Bollywood, raised in Hollywood and perfect to head India Vertical”, Sanjay chose to decline the offer and resigned as Director, Special Projects. He opted to come to Mumbai and make movies.
B-Town’s newest producer has other plans too. “Apart from Hope Solo with my friend Athiya, we will also very soon launch a big movie set in Abu Dhabi, another subject set in LA and a wedding film as well,” he sums up.
