Ranbir Kapoor will be playing his favourite political figure, Rajiv Gandhi in Prakash Jha's Rajniti.
It's a dream come true for the actor, who's currently on a role-shopping spree. He is in serious talks with every big-wig in tinsel town, from Karan Johar to Sajid Nadiadwala.
It was Ranbir's father Rishi Kapoor who urged his son to hear the director out. And Ranbir was spellbound.
"I had my mind and heart set on Ranbir for the role. It's a role that requires innocence, nobility, idealism, vision and dynamism. It also requires a personality of perfect breeding and gentility. I'd have probably dropped Rajniti if Ranbir hadn't agreed. I could see he was guarded when we met. But the reserve dissolved when I narrated my script to him. 'I am doing this,' is all he said after hearing me out," says Jha.
The role would require Ranbir to go through a gamut of cultural and chronological changes. For his next release Bachna Ae Haseenon, Ranbir ages from his late teens to mid-30s and in Rajniti, he would first play a young Indian student studying in a foreign university with a Caucasian girlfriend. The character then undergoes a mammoth metamorphosis as he's summoned back to Delhi to take over the family's political empire after a gruesome tragedy.
Jha is currently looking at three top young international actresses to play Ranbir's companion. "The heroine won't be a non-descript model or TV actress posing as a big star for a Bollywood film. The actress opposite Ranbir will be a top-of-the-line name."
Jha sees no hurdles to his film even though earlier, movies on political personalities have ran into serious trouble. Director Jagmohan Mundhra was forced to drop plans to make a bio-pic on Sonia Gandhi with Monica Belluci in the lead due to political pressure. "Ranbir exudes an aura of dignity and calm. He will make Rajniti credible and convincing," says an unperturbed Jha.
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