Bollywood’s veteran filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali recently admitted he wanted to cast Pakistani A-listers Mahira Khan, Fawad Khan and Imran Abbas in his passion project ‘Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar’.
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In a new interview with Indian-Canadian YouTuber, Lilly Singh, at the Los Angeles premiere of his hotly-anticipated web series ‘Heeramandi’, SLB disclosed that Pakistani stars Mahira Khan, Fawad Khan and Imran Abbas, who have proven their mettle in Bollywood in the past, were among his initial choices for the cast.
As known to everyone, the veteran first envisioned the project in the feature film format almost 18 years ago and has had multiple castings in mind since then. When asked about the casting process, he said, “I had multiple castings in my mind, the idea has been there for 18 years. I thought about Rekha ji and then Kareena Kapoor and Rani Mukerji.”
Bhansali added, “It was a film back then. I then also thought about Mahira Khan, the Pakistani actress, and Imran Abbas and Fawad Khan were also in my mind at one point in time. But I ended up with this ensemble cast.”
Notably, prolific filmmaker SLB’s much-awaited digital debut ‘Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar’, explores the ‘stories of courtesans’ living in the red light district of Lahore, during the pre-independent India.
The eight-episodic web series, starring Manisha Koirala, Sonakshi Sinha, Aditi Rao Hydari, Richa Chadha, Sanjeeda Sheikh and Sharmin Segal in the main roles, along with Farida Jalal, Fardeen Khan, Shekhar and Adhyayan Suman, and Taha Shah, premiered on the streaming giant Netflix yesterday, May 1.
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