Ranbir to portray Rajiv Gandhi

MUMBAI:

Ranbir Kapoor will be playing his favourite political figure, Rajiv Gandhi in Prakash Jha’s Rajniti. 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 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.”

“Ranbir exudes an aura of dignity and calm. He will make Rajniti credible and convincing,” says an unperturbed Jha. — Agencies