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It is rather intriguing that Mahesh Bhatt should drop two established heroines originally slated to be the lead in his two films - Esha Deol in Jannat and Bipasha Basu in Raaz 2. Instead Bhatt went ahead and offered both the roles to ex-model and a rank newcomer, Sonal Chauhan.
When we asked Bhatt why he chose to cast an unknown face instead of big actresses like Esha and Bipasha, he reacted, "Since when did Esha Deol become a big name? And Bipasha was our discovery in Raaz anyway. So we thought it would be a good idea to have her in the sequel too, but nothing concrete worked out for us. As for Esha, Mukesh wanted her for Jannat but things went wrong."
Bhatt told us why he had zeroed down on Sonal. He said, "I have signed her for both Raaz 2 and Jannat because she's mature, talented and deserving. Our assets are our capacity to create stars and we do not hold on to them, they are free to move on once they find their feet."
Anupamaa
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