Hansal Mehta recalls how producers were hesitant to fund Shahid with newcomer Rajkummar Rao in the lead | Hindi Movie News – Times of India

Filmmaker Hansal Mehta recently recalled the time when he faced challenges while making his 2021 film Shahid with Rajkummar Rao in the lead. The movie was based on the life of lawyer and human rights activist Shahid Azmi who was assassinated in 2010. Both Hansal and Rajkummarwon the National Awards for Best Actor and Best Director respectively. But the director revealed that the producers of the film were hesitant to put their money on Rajkummar as the lead.
In a new interview, Hansal said that his life restarted when he found the story of Shahid. He found his voice again and his muse in finding that voice was Rajkummar. He said that script of Shahid was sent to a lot of actors before Rajkummar. However, either the star did not want to work with him or the star wanted to change the way Shahid was written and change the narrative completely.
Hansal put his foot down and said, ‘Either it is this or it’s nothing’. In that process, casting director Mukesh Chhabra and director Anurag Kashyap kept asking him to meet Rajkummar. But Hansal said, ‘I can’t meet him. What will I do with him?’. He revealed that the producer told him that Anurag is going to send Rajkummar to you but he will not be funding it for the actor because he was very new and had just done Love, Sex Aur Dhokha.Mukesh and Anurag told Hansal to have chai with Rajkummar since he was standing outside his office. As Rajkummar walked in, in half an hour Hansal felt the right energy and connected to him. He was honesty and hunger in him and Rajkummar wanted to prove it. Shahid was a dream role and he recognised that.
Before meeting the producer, Hansal made a poster of Shahid with Rajkummar. When the producer saw the poster, he said that it is looking cool and asked, ‘who is this fellow?’ Hansal then asked him to watch his then-upcoming film Ragini MMS which convinced him on Rajkummar’s acting skills.
After Shahid, Hansal and Rajkummar went on to work together in City Lights, Aligarh and Omerta. He became one of the favourite actors of Hansal. Rajkummar was last seen in Anubhav Sinha’s Bheed and also won the Filmfare Award for Best Actor for Badhaai Do.