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Did you know Naseeruddin Shah’s manager rejected A Wednesday on his behalf? Here’s how actor came onboard later
Filmmaker Neeraj Pandey recently revealed that Naseeruddin Shah's manager had initially rejected A Wednesday on his behalf and here's how the veteran actor was onboarded later.
The 2008 film A Wednesday was a milestone in Indian cinema and enjoys a cult following to date. Directed by Neeraj Pandey, the movie starred Naseeruddin Shah and Anupam Kher in lead roles alongside Jimmy Sheirgill, Aamir Bashir, Deepal Shaw, and Parag Tyagi. Not many know but Shah had almost lost the film due to his manager who rejected the movie on the actor’s behalf.
What happened during A Wednesday casting that made Naseeruddin Shah almost give it a miss?
Recently while speaking to Fever FM, Neeraj Pandey recalled a rather ‘funny’ casting process and shared that he had sent through the script to Shah. A month later, the veteran star’s manager called the filmmaker and said that Naseer hadn’t liked it and didn’t want to do it. “I moved on and I started looking for someone else,” Pandey said.
It was after some time had passed away that Naseeruddin Shah called Neeraj Pandey in the middle of the night and told him that he just wrapped up reading the script. “My first reaction was your manager you don’t like it. He asked when I would like to meet. We met up the next day and that kickstarted that journey,” the filmmaker recalled.
Neeraj Pandey says there was no support for A Wednesday
It was Neeraj’s debut movie and no one was ready to back him when he said he wanted to onboard these two big faces for the lead. “No one wanted these two apart from the core group,” he revealed admitting that the producers were high time insisting on taking young faces.
He shared, “There was strong resistance that you are a debutant director, it’s your first film, you are taking two older actors, there’s no heroine, there’s no song.” Neeraj said that even UTV who later funded the film was ready to back his idea. Eventually, the movie came into shape and today enjoys an IMDb rating of 8.1.
When Naseeruddin Shah confronted Neeraj Pandey about all terrorists being Muslim
While A Wednesday attempted to showcase that terrorism didn’t have a religion, the four prime terrorists shown in the movie were Muslims. This generated a question in Naseer’s mind which he asked Neeraj unfiltered. In an interview with Indian Express, the actor shared, “There was a hidden message in it. I even asked Neeraj if it was deliberate. He said there’s nothing political in this.”
Shah had wondered why there was no Tamilian, Naxal, Maoist, or someone from the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) but all four of them were Muslims. The Taj actor has always been quite vocal about the communal hatred in the country and once claimed that ‘Muslim hating’ is fashionable even among educated people.
Naseeruddin told Indian Express in another interview, “The kind of stuff that’s pure, undisguised propaganda is being lapped up and it’s a reflection of the zeitgeist of the times.” The 73-year-old wondered when the world is talking about secularism and democracy then why there were mentions of religion in everything?
On the work front, Neeraj Pandey is currently gearing up for the release of his film Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha starring Ajay Devgn and Tabu in the lead. The movie which was recently postponed just three days before its release will now hit the theatres on July 26 - a development exclusively reported by Pinkvilla.
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