Amitabh Bachchan to Play Pakistani National?
Megastar Amitabh Bachchan is likely to essay the role of a Pakistani national in Oscar-winning sound designer Resul Pookutty’s directorial debut. Big B, 69, will play a Pakistani national in Resul Pookutty’s film, with the actor verbally agreeing for it. “He (Resul) had come to me... He had met me. He wanted to make a film with me. We had some discussions but nothing has been finalised yet,” he said in an interview in Mumbai last night. Resul Pookutty, who bagged an Academy award for best sound mixing for Slumdog Millionaire, said, “I have approached Mr Bachchan for the film that I want to direct. The character is from another country but it is not a political film. It is an extremely human subject that touches the lives of people on both sides of the border.” The film will be an emotional one dealing with the relationship between a father and son. Meanwhile, Mr Bachchan might play the role of an aging Shakespearean stage actor in Mahesh Manjrekar’s screen adaptation of celebrated play ‘Natsamrat’, penned by V V Shirwadkar. Bachchan had played a similar role in The Last Lear. Big B has reportedly given a green signal to his career’s first ever screen adaptation of Marathi literature. “Mahesh Manjrekar will be directing it but it is at a nascent stage. It is a very nice and famous play, lot of big artists have been part of it. I can’t talk much about it... It is too early,” he said. The actor also has a blink-and-youmiss-it cameo in R Balki’s wife Gauri Shinde’s directorial debutEnglish Vinglish. “It is not great (kamaal) and all. Sridevi is the heroine of the film, and the movie is based on her. The only thing that I do in the film is I just pass through her...nothing else,” he said. Actress Sridevi is making her big screen comeback with Gauri Shinde’s English Vinglish. And it is after a gap of almost 18 years, that Big B and Sridevi will be sharing screen space after Khuda Gawah. The film will see Sridevi in the role of a housewife, who, in order to please her husband and family, enrolls for an English speaking course.