Tapsee Pannu slammed the makers of Karthik Aryan starrer Pati Patni Aur Woh, calling them unprofessional for replacing her with a different actress after she had allocated dates for the movie. Directed by Mudassar Aziz, the movie is produced by Bhushan Kumar, and stars Karthik Aryan, newcomer Ananya Pandey, and Bhumi Pednekar who is rumoured to have replaced Taapsee Pannu.
The actress termed the incident an ‘eye opener’ and said the ‘struggle doesn’t really end.’ She was quoted by India Today as saying, “And I signed up for it. I knew it when I started out.”
Her intention was not to target a particular person or a group of people but to call out unprofessionalism, she said. “One film out of my career is not going to make me lose a National Award. The problem wasn’t that. The problem was unprofessionalism which I wanted to call out.”
“When I tried to confront the producers, I wasn’t given a proper reason. As much as I have been trying to get some clarity on the matter, they’ve been putting off the conversation, which is very weird,” she added. The movie is a remake of the 1978 Sanjeev Kumar starrer, and is slated for release on January 10, 2020.
Release date finalised… #PatiPatniAurWoh to release on 10 Jan 2020… Stars Kartik Aaryan, Bhumi Pednekar and Ananya Pandey… Directed by Mudassar Aziz… Produced by Bhushan Kumar, Krishan Kumar, Juno Chopra and Abhay Chopra. pic.twitter.com/Lr8P1UQ3rs
— taran adarsh (@taran_adarsh) February 25, 2019
The actress also said that nepotism was still prevalent. “It will stay like that. This is the rule of the game and I can’t be cribbing about it every day. Today I have the power to call it out and I did. Thankfully, I am in a position where I have enough work. If I would have been in a position where I didn’t have enough work, they would have said I am doing it to get attention. That I am making noise.”
Meanwhile, the makers of the movie released a statement saying they merely approached the actress for a part and had never really signed her on. “The versatile actress Taapsee Pannu was one of the many actresses we had approached for one of the leading ladies in the film. However, we as producers have never made any commitment to her. We would like to clarify that our casting was purely done on the basis of who suited the characters to the tee. Taapsee is an extremely talented actress and we would love to work with her in the future.”
