Alia in Riteish Batra's Next!

The actress has given the nod to The Lunchbox director Ritesh Batra's second Hindi feature which rolls next year.

Alia Bhatt is the leading lady of The Lunchbox director, Ritesh Batra's second Hindi feature film. It is a slice-of-life love story narrated from a young girl's perspective. The casting for an actor opposite Alia is currently underway and the film rolls next year.

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Ritesh is presently in London shooting his British drama, The Sense of an Ending, based on Julian Barnes' Booker Prize-winning novel by the same name. The critically acclaimed director left Mumbai in mid-June and will return only in late October or early November. The English production has a stellar cast, including Academy Award winner Jim Broadbent, Emily Mortimer from Shutter Island and The Newsroom fame and Michelle Dockery, the Downton Abbey star. "Ritesh approached Alia for the film before he left for the UK. And the actress has recently come on board the project," says a source close to the development.

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Mirror (August 19) had earlier reported that Alia, who has five big-ticket releases lined up through 2015-16, had also signed Gauri Shinde's yet-to-be titled drama about love that also features Shah Rukh Khan. We texted both Alia and Ritesh but they chose not to respond for details about the project.