Actor Akshaye Khanna is the frontrunner to play the role of Sunil Dutt in Rajkumar HIrani’s biopic on Sanjay Dutt. 41-year-old Khanna was on a four year hiatus before returning to films with Dishoom (2016), where he played the antagonist.
Prior to this, Khanna’s last film was Rumi Jaffery’s 2012 comedy Gali Gali Chor Hai. Akshaye Khanna told Mumbai Mirror that he had felt suffocated and creatively stifled, as acting was the only thing he knows and wants to do. “Once I was in front of the camera, I felt like I was able to breathe again, there was a sense of belonging,” he said. The actor has also been shooting for Boney Kapoor’s next production Mom, alongside Sridevi and Nawazuddin Siddiqui.
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Sunil Dutt was an actor and politician who rose to stardom with Mehboob Khan’s 1957 epic drama, Mother India, as Nargis’s rebel son Birju. He later married the actress in 1958. He went on to star in blockbusters like Sadhna, Sujata, Mujhe Jeene Do, Khandan, and Padosan. His last film was Rajkumar Hirani’s 2003 film Munna Bhai MBBS, where he acted alongside his son Sanjay Dutt, who played the titular role.
Ranbir Kapoor will play the role of Sanjay Dutt, the actor who was convicted under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act in April 1993. Shooting will begin in January. Actors Sonam Kapoor and Anushka Sharma are also in the cast. In February, Hirani had captured live footage of Sanjay’s dramatic walk out of the Yerwada jail in Pune. Since the actor’s release in February, Ranbir has visited him frequently.