Randeep Hooda is not just playing the lead in Swatantra Veer Savarkar but is also directing the movie. Initially, it was Mahesh Manjrekar who was supposed to direct the biopic. However, in a recent interview, Manjrekar revealed that he left the project due to Randeep Hooda’s interference. He alleged that Hooda planned to remove him from the film.
Speaking to Bollywood Hungama, Mahesh Manjrekar revealed he was initially impressed with Randeep Hooda’s research around the movie but soon the actor started to question the script. “I met Randeep and I saw that he’s quite sincere and was involved with the subject. We had a couple of meetings. He read several books related to the freedom struggle, World Wars etc. I found it quite interesting. The first draft was read out to him. He had a few issues and that was okay. Then even during the second draft, he had (some objections). I told him, ‘If this is what’s going to happen, there will be a problem in the film’. He assured me that once the script is locked, he won’t question anything,” the filmmaker said.
Manjerakar mentioned that he does not like interference but Randeep Hooda continued to have problems. “I was very happy that the script was finally locked. However, again, a few issues cropped up. He wanted to incorporate Hitler, the King of England, the Prime Minister of England, etc. He wanted to incorporate Lokmanya Tilak’s ‘Swaraj is my birthright and I’ll get it’ episode. I wondered how all this matters to Savarkar’s biopic. I reasoned that we were doing a biopic on Savarkar,” he added.
Mahesh Majerakar further alleged that Randeep Hooda remained adamant regarding certain changes to be made in the script. He went on to claim that Hooda even tried to add a factually incorrect incident in the film and therefore, he decided to leave the project.
“He wanted to incorporate a scene of Bhagat Singh with Savarkar. I was appalled. Where did this happen? He also wanted to incorporate prisoners from the 1857 mutiny in Andaman Jail. I asked, ‘How can we show that?’. He insisted that we can and that they must have been 90 years old (when Savarkar was imprisoned in the same jail),” he said.
Swatantra Veer Savarkar is the biopic of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. The film marks Randeep Hooda’s debut as a director. The film also landed in legal trouble recently after Hooda issued a statement claiming full ownership of the film.
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