‘Gullible’ Anurag Kashyap can be misled by people with ulterior motives, Mukesh Chhabra opens up about their falling-out

Casting director Mukesh Chhabra opened up about his tiff with Anurag Kashyap, and said that the director can often be misled by people with ulterior motives.

By: Entertainment Desk

New Delhi | December 2, 2023 06:33 PM IST

3 min read

anurag kashyap, anurag kashyap movies, anurag kashyap interview, shah rukh khan, salman khan, anurag kashyap on salman khan, anurag kashyap on srk, anurag kashyap on shahrukh khan

Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap addresses the gathering during the Loksatta Gappa in Mumbai. (Express file photo by Deepak Joshi)

Casting director, filmmaker, and occasional actor Mukesh Chhabra, who has been working in Hindi films for decades, spoke his equation with director Anurag Kashyap. One of Mukesh Chhabra’s crowning achievements is casting the hundreds of roles in Anurag’s Gangs of Wasseypur, but they subsequently had a falling-out. In an interview with The Lallantop, Mukesh described Anurag as ‘gullible’, but said that they have since made up.

Asked what went wrong between them, Mukesh said, “It’s okay now. That man doesn’t realise how much he is loved. He thinks that I never take his side when it comes to casting decisions, and I always endorse the right person for the job. He is kaan ka kacha (gullible), he always thinks that I cast my favourites, and never support the actors that he likes. And people talk, he believes them. He’s like a child; he’s emotional; we’ve fought over such things… We storm out in anger and refuse to talk for days, and then one of us will call the other up. If you’ve been with someone for so many years, it’s difficult to sever ties.”

Also read – Animal box office collection Day 1: Ranbir Kapoor delivers his biggest opener as the film makes Rs 61 crore, overtakes Pathaan

Mukesh said that many of Anurag’s filmmaker friends, such as Hansal Mehta, Anubhav Sinha, Sudhir Mishra, Tigmanshu Dhulia, and Vishal Bhardwaj, and tried to convince him that he was being misled about him. He said, “In a way, whatever I’ve learned about casting has come from him. Nobody supports new talent like he does.” Mukesh was also asked about Anurag calling him a ‘misogynist’, and he said that he confronted the filmmaker about it, but Anurag said that he wasn’t in the right mood when he posted that tweet. Mukesh said that Anurag has a habit of not responding when he doesn’t have a rational argument to make.

Mukesh also offered his two cents on why he feels Bombay Velvet, Anurag’s big-budget period crime movie starring Ranbir Kapoor and Anushka Sharma, tanked with both critics and audiences. “Anurag shouldn’t work with stars, he should make stars,” he said, adding that Anurag is the sort of person who can be misled into making the kind of movies he doesn’t normally want to, and whenever this has happened, those movies have failed.

Anurag is currently gearing up for the release of Kennedy, his new crime movie that premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Kennedy stars Rahul Bhat and Sunny Leone.

From the homepage