MUMBAI: Southern star Kajal Aggarwal has not made much headway in Bollywood in spite of a blockbuster ‘Singham’ to her credit. After much delay and deliberation she managed to sign a second Hindi film ‘Special Chabbis’ with Akshay Kumar.
Kajal doesn’t have much to do in the heist caper. But a female lead with Akshay Kumar is at the end of the Friday, an acquisition.
Hence when news of the ‘Thuppakki’ remake filtered out Kajal Aggarwal’s publicity machinery jumped in with proprietorial authority.
Says a source, “Kajal played the lead in the Tamil original ‘Thuppakki’, so she was convinced she’d be signed for the Hindi remake, specially since Asin who had done the Tamil ‘Ghajini ‘had been repeated in Hindi by Murugadoss.”
Murugadoss confirms he did think of casting Kajal in the ‘Thuppakki’ remake. However producer Vipul Shah vetoed the idea.
“Vipulji wanted a completely fresh cast in the remake. We aren’t even casting Vidyut Jamwal in the remake. He played the main villain very effectively in Thuppakki,” reveals Vipul.
This rebuff, however, didn’t stop Kajal’s aggressive PR machinery from plugging along her imaginary place in the Thuppakki remake. Her spokesperson maintains Kajal has been offered the film and that the deal would be finalized soon.
Murugadoss, not known to speak beyond mumbles, has another story to tell. According to the director, “We don’t want to repeat any of the actors from the original. Besides, Kajal Aggarwal is also already doing another film with Akshay. We don’t want to repeat the combination.”
Casting Kajal Aggarwal from the Tamil Thuppakki to the Hindi is not an option.
Explains Murugadoss, “I don’t want to repeat the cast or even the location from the Tamil. In that sense my remake of ‘Thuppakki’ would be very different from ‘Ghajini’ where we repeated the heroine and the villain from Tamil in Hindi..We aren’t even repeating Vidyut Jamwal as the main villain in the ‘Thuppakki’ remake. He has been much appreciated in Tamil. But we need to change all the faces and locations in Hindi. So even though I’ve shot ‘Thuppakki’ in Mumbai and I’ll be shooting its Hindi remake in the same city, the locations would purposely be different.”
