Much before The Accidental Prime Minister (2019), actor Akshaye Khanna was offered another real-life character which he couldn’t do. He was offered the important role of late actor Sunil Dutt in Rajkumar Hirani’s Sanju (2018), the biopic on Sanjay Dutt in which Ranbir Kapoor played the titular role.
Khanna will be playing the real-life character of Sanjaya Baru in director Vijay Gutte’s The Accidental Prime Minister. The film is based on Baru’s book of the same name. He was the media advisor to the former prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh. Khanna plays the role of the narrator in the film.
During an interview for The Accidental Prime Minister, the actor said that he couldn’t do Sanju (2018) due to technical reasons. “Sanju was offered to me last to last year [2017]. I couldn’t do the film because my look wasn’t working. So I couldn’t do the film,” he said. The role eventually went to Paresh Rawal.
Khanna added that he still regrets not doing the film. “I was very eager to work with Raju Hirani. He is a zabardast [terrific] storyteller. I will always regret this,” he said.
During the course of the interaction, Khanna also spoke about his upcoming film. “In this very year I will be doing a very good romantic comedy,” he said, refusing to say anything more about the film.
The Accidental Prime Minister sees veteran actor Anupam Kher essay the role of Singh. The film will deal with Singh’s tenure as the PM from 2004 to 2014 and will be released on 11 January.