Looking back: Vidhu Vinod Chopra opens up on industry’s ban on Sanjay Dutt

Filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra looked back on roping in Sanjay Dutt in Munna Bhai.MBBS following Shah Rukh Khan back out from the project.

The Filmmaker added that he wanted to cast Sanjay Dutt in the role of his lifetime. But at that time around, the industry had banned him for having been convicted in a terrorism case.

However, Chopra deemed it incorrect. Hence to give a moral support he stood by the actor. solidarity with the troubled star and announced of having signed him for a project. The role ultimately went to Jimmy Shergill, with Shah Rukh Khan playing the central role of Munna Bhai.

In a media interaction the filmmaker admitted that he didn’t actually wanted Sanjay Dutt in the film, which is why, when the actor was released from jail and ready to work, he told him that they’d have to wait until they work together.
Ironically, Sanjay went to jail

Chopra continued, Sanjay was released from jail, he remembered calling him from the car and wanted to meet, and finalise his first comeback film

He had told the actor that he will ‘Inever make a film with him just announced it because it was the right thing to do’.

It was his thinking that the announcement meant that we were actually going to work together. He told him he cannot make a film with unless the equation changes, because he cannot exploit a good deed’. It’s a terrible thing to do, that you do something good and exploit it.”

Dutt also didn’t understand this concept, Chopra admitted. “So, when I told him to do Jimmy Shergill’s role, he agreed. He said, ‘Anything’. Then, Shah Rukh, of course, came to me and he had a throat thing… So, I decided that Sanjay Dutt is the right guy. Chopra told him, he is doing Munna Bhai’.

News Edit K.V.Raman