I wanted to remake Mujhe Jeene Do with Ranbir playing a gangster

Says Sanjay Dutt, whose upcoming movie sees him and Kapoor play dacoits

rather than a dacoit and wanted Ranbir to play the lead. But that didn’t happen,” says Sanjay.

For Ranbir, Shamshera is his first project as a dacoit. Known for lover-boy roles, the film will show the Rockstar actor in a fierce and aggressive avatar. “He also has an action-packed role in Brahmastra. Even the film, Animal,

will see Ranbir in a very different frame. In Ranbir is out to avenge the death of his family members, who Sanjay has supposedly killed. Since the movie is set at the end of 19th century and early 20th century, Ranbir’s character will also be pitted against the British,” a source reveals about Karan Malhotra directorial, which also stars Vaani Kapoor. “It is not just the story of a dacoit, but the tale of a tribe that fights not just for its rights but also independence from the British. The character in Shamshera is an angry and an intense person,” Ranbir had said during one of his interviews. Yash Raj Films also dropped a poster of Shamshera

on September 28 to mark Ranbir’s birthday. Bollywood’s tryst with dacoits goes long back to the era of Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar. Almost every veteran actor has, at some point, played a dacoit on screen. For instance, Raj Kapoor in Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai, Dilip Kumar in Gunga Jumna and

Rajendra Kumar in Suraj, Feroz Khan in Mela, Dharmendra in Samadhi and Patthar Aur Payal, Amitabh Bachchan in Ganga Ki Saugandh,

Khanna in Bhola Bhala and Dharam Kanta,

Khanna in Mera Gaon Mera Desh, Patthar Aur Payal and Kuchhe Dhaage. In the more modern Bollywood era, actors like Seema Biswas, Manoj Bajpayee (Bandit Queen), Sushant Singh Rajput (Sonchiriya, which also starred Manoj and Bhumi Pednekar), Irrfan Khan

have played dacoits.