Manoj Bajpayee was signed to do Aamir Khan’s role in Rang De Basanti; producers thought it was a ‘Sholay remake’, wanted to cast Esha Deol as Basanti: screenwriter reveals details

Rang De Basanti (2006) would be a career-defining movie for anyone involved with the project, even for Aamir Khan, who already had a couple of those in his filmography. He played the iconic character of DJ/Chandrashekhar Azad, who, with his band of friends, decided to fight against the corrupt and unjust system of the country. But what if Aamir never played DJ? One of the screenwriters of the movie, Kamlesh Pandey, recently talked about that very possibility and revealed how originally Manoj Bajpayee was supposed to play DJ.

Talking to Ravya Sarda on her YouTube show, Pandey shared many anecdotes from behind the scenes and what all transpires on the writers’ table. Talking about Rang De Basanti, he revealed how Aamir wasn’t the first choice for the film, but casting Manoj came with its own set of problems. He said, “We had been roaming around with the script of the film for 6 years, and no one was ready to make that film. We had signed Manoj for the role that Aamir played finally. We thought we would make a small film; we didn’t have a big budget. The moment Aamir heard the script, he told us that he wanted to do the film, and he even got AR Rahman to come on the project. UTV, who had rejected the film twice in the past, immediately said yes to it.”

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Pandey added that people in the industry were not taking the script seriously and were also not very clear about what the narrative was about. “Producers thought that this was a Sholay remake from the point of view of Basanti. They used to make fun of it and ask who was going to play her, and I used to tell them with a straight face that we were thinking of casting Esha Deol. They used to take it so seriously, and I didn’t really know whether to slap these people or ignore them,” added Pandey.

Another change in cast which could have affected the final product was Randeep Hooda playing the role of Karan (Bhagat Singh). Hooda told podcast host Shubhankar Mishra that he regrets letting go of the opportunity and that he only said no because he did not want to play second fiddle to Aamir. He admitted that he lost another role in Rock On because of his Jaat akad. The role ultimately went to Siddharth.

Directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, the cast of Rang De Basanti included stars like Aamir, Siddharth, Soha Ali Khan, R Madhavan, Kunal Kapoor, Sharman Joshi, Atul Kulkarni, Alice Patten, Anupam Kher, Waheeda Rehman and Kirron Kher.