The 2002 film “Aankhen” is considered a cult film. The film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Sushmita Sen, Arjun Rampal, Akshay Kumar,
Paresh Rawal
It is still beloved for its unique plot and treatment. The film revolves around three blind men who rob a bank after being trained and deployed by Bachchan’s character.
While the movie got a lot of love, did you know that the character played by Paresh Rawal was original and was supposed to be played by Paresh Ganatra.
The film is based on a Gujarati play called ‘Aandhro Paato’ in which Ganatra played the role. During an exclusive conversation with ETimes, when Paresh talked about his latest web series ‘Made in India: Titan Story’, the actor opened up about his journey in films. He started with theatre, then followed several TV shows and then films such as No Entry and Welcome.
When asked about his role in Aankhen, he said, “Aankhen was a film based on my Gujarati play Aandho Paato.” When they were making the film on a small scale, they said that I would play the role of Ilyas, which was played by Paresh Rawal, because I had played that role in the play.
I was very happy that that play was such a success. But then Mr. Bachchan said yes to the film and was approached because it was the perfect choice for him. When Mr. Bachchan said yes and joined us, director Vipul Shah explained to me that the film would now be made on a different scale.
“I completely understood and it was clear that the rest of the cast was also needed accordingly. However, I told him that since the film is based on my play where I played an important character, I needed some role in the film. That’s when they gave me the character of Shailesh and people really liked it. They still remember it,” he added. Ganatra recalls how things finally fell into place. “After seeing me in Aankhen, based on my character Shailesh,
Anees Bazmee
He called me and gave me a “no entry”. He said there are only two scenes but please do it, I won’t cut. “But he liked my work so much that he put more of my scenes in No Entry and I shot with them for 21 days.” No Entry also stars Anil Kapoor, Fardeen Khan, Salman Khan, Bipasha Basu, Esha Deol and Celina Jaitley.