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A lot can happen over a cup of coffee, including bagging a screen test. Casting director Mukesh Chhabra has revealed the first time he asked late actor Sushant Singh Rajput to audition for Kai Po Che was when he had spotted him chilling with his friends at a coffee shop. The 2013 buddy drama marked Sushant’s screen debut after his popular TV show Pavitra Rishta.
In an interview with Bollywood Bubble, Chhabra was asked about his first memory with Rajput, with whom he shared a great friendship till the actor’s death in 2020.
“My first interaction with him was at a coffee shop. Before that, I had met him once normally because a lot of people meet you for work, but I didn’t register him,” Mukesh Chhabra recalled meeting Sushant Singh Rajput when he was also searching for fresh faces for Kai Po Che.
He added, “I had seen Pavitra Rishta and thought he was an interesting actor, so I approached him and asked if he would come for a screen test for Kai Po Che. He was casually chilling with friends, when I asked him. He was like, ‘Yes sure sir, I will come.’ He then auditioned and the rest is history.”
During the interview, the casting director also revealed that there were many actors who had done screen test for the Abhishek Kapoor directorial. Kai Po Che featured Sushant, Rajkummar Rao and Amit Sadh.
“Vijay Varma, Ayushmann Khurrana, Ali Fazal, Angad Bedi, and a lot of other actors had also auditioned. It was a fantastic, memorable experience casting for the film. I had a small office, and all of them had come here to audition. All of them are so successful today,” he said.
Sushant Singh Rajput and Mukesh Chhabra remained good friends, with the actor also starring in the latter’s directorial debut Dil Bechara. Chhabra said he had dreamt of making multiple films with Rajput, but the dream will always remain unfulfilled.
“Our dream is now incomplete. After your first film, you always feel you will work with your friend again, do multiple films together, what people call the ‘actor-director’ jodi. That is now incomplete. I can’t even think about that now. After we made our film, we thought, ‘Bhai we will now do back-to-back films.’ Woh sapna adhura reh gaya. I haven’t spoken to his family in a long time but I had recently interacted with his sister on social media,” he added.
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