Somebody's loss is somebody's gain

Long back, the legendary Gurudutt had offered the lead role in PYAASA to Dilip Kumar, but he refused it. Guru Dutt himself played the role and as we know, PYAASA went on to become an immortal film in Indian cinema. The path breaking ZANJEER was first offered to Dharmendra and the late Raj Kumar before Amitabh took up the charge. Needless to say, what ZANJEER is to Hindi cinema.

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Abhishek however did not have his father's luck by his side. He denied the role of Bhuvan in LAGAAN and had to pay a heavy 'tax' later on as he delivered a string of flops till recently when he found success with BUNTY AUR BABLI and BLUFFMASTER.

And now the buzz doing the rounds is that Hrithik Roshan had denied a role in the runaway hit RANG DE BASANTI. The role was that of 'Karan Singhania' which was later played by the Southern superstar Siddharth. The film's characters have become popular and Siddharth too has hordes of fans gushing towards him. In fact, the speculation is that director Rakeysh Mehra and actor Aamir Khan personally went to meet Hrithik and requested him to be a part of the film, but Hrithik turned down the offer.

Actors denying substantial roles and in the process shrugging off a golden opportunity is a puzzling transaction and surprises me to the extreme. When stars talk incessantly about script then how come they falter to judge the potential and importance of the character. Or the greed to bag the meatier part pushes them to the edge? Acting is about playing the character, fleshing out its nuances irrespective of the length or footage the role is going to flex.

Secondly, a film is never an actor's medium. It's the filmmaker's medium and an actor's part is just to accept the offer or simply reject it. Any meddling with the film's script or the process itself is totally uncalled for. More so if an established actor does so it becomes even more unprofessional and in the bargain the particular actors' fans end up getting disappointed.

Even the grapevine was abuzz that DARR was first offered to Aamir Khan but he refused to play the negative character. It was then given to Shahrukh and the rest is history.

So many instances could be cited out in this context. In the end, one can only quote that somebody's loss is the other person's gain. After that, you might just be left to regret and nothing else!