Hansal Mehta Recalls producers were hesitant to cast Rajkummar Rao in Shahid
Hansal Mehta and Rajkummar Rao have worked on several films such as Aligarh and Citylights.
Hansal Mehta is known for making realistic and gripping films. The film-maker boasts of a repertoire consisting of movies like Aligarh, Omerta and the critically-acclaimed web series Scam 1992. His most recent series Scoop is also being hailed by the critics. In 2012, Mehta had helmed Shahid that earned Rajkummar Rao a lot of recognition. However, the film-maker reveals that producers were hesitant to cast Rajkummar.
Speaking with Humans Of Bombay, Hansal Mehta recalled,
“I found Shahid Azmi’s story and my life restarted. Basically, I found my voice again and my muse in finding that voice was Rajkummar. Shahid, the script was sent to a lot of stars, and somehow either the star did not want to work with me, or if the star wanted to work with me, he wanted to change the way Shahid was written, change the narrative completely. I put my foot down. I said, ‘Either it is this or it’s nothing’.”
In the meantime, Anurag Kashyap and Mukesh Chabbra insisted Hansal Mehta to test out Rajkummar Rao who was still quite fresh in the industry, “They kept saying that meet Rajkummar. I said ‘I can’t meet him. What will I do with him?’. There was no money. The producer said, ‘Anurag is going to send Rajkummar to you. I’m not funding it. I’m not putting money in for Rajkummar’. He was very new. He had just done Love, Sex Aur Dhokha,” he stated.
Hansal Mehta further added, “They said have chai with him right now, he’s standing outside your office. He walks in, and in half an hour, I mean, there was something. I felt the right energy. I felt I connected to him and I saw honesty and hunger. He said he wanted to prove it. Shahid was a dream role and he recognised that…”
Much later, Hansal Mehta convinced the producer by asking them to watch Ragini MMS. He also created a poster with Rajkummar Rao as Shahid to which the producer responded,
“Poster is cool, but who is this fellow?”
Shahid was a biographical film about a lawyer Shahid Azmi. Azmi toyed with the idea of becoming a terrorist but decided to change the course of his life. After being arrested under TADA, he completed his education in Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai. Once acquitted of the charges, he went on to study law and started representing people wrongly accused of terrorism. He became a successful lawyer and was working on the case of Faheem Ansari in the 26/11 case when he was killed by four gunmen at the age of 32. Ansari was acquitted of all the charges by the Supreme Court in 2012.
