Mohit Suri shared that he took almost four-to-five months to finalize the female lead for his latest hit Saiyaara. Eventually, he selected Aneet Padda.
After a brief role in Kajol starrer Salaam Venky (2022), Aneet Padda recently made her debut as a leading lady in Mohit Suri’s musical romantic drama Saiyaara. The film also marked the acting debut of Ahaan Panday, Chunky Panday’s nephew.
In a recent interview with Bollywood Hungama, the film’s director Mohit Suri revealed that he had a major criteria while finalizing his leading lady and also opened up on why the role went to Aneet.
Speaking about how it wasn’t an easy task to find the perfect girl for Vaani’s role, he said, “I’m sorry if I don’t sound politically correct, but one thing that was very scary was that I wanted a 20–22-year-old girl who hadn’t done anything cosmetologically to her face or body in today’s age. That was a big requirement.”
“I wanted someone who felt real and hadn’t altered her body. Aneet had done some work before, and she was great at it. She was predominantly a great actor, especially for the part I required her to play. She came through all the slaughtering of auditions,” Suri revealed while talking about why he finally zeroed in on Aneet to play the female lead.
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He further added that there were other actors who also gave good auditions, but they were “too done up.”
Mohit, in the same chat, also recalled how his first meeting with Aneet was ‘disastrous’ and how Ahaan saved the situation for her that day.
“It was a disastrous first meeting with her. She came into the office wearing a yellow costume, and Ahaan was there with me. I told her, ‘What the hell are you wearing?’ Someone had told her that’s how the character was. She must have got really scared, and when this generation gets scared, they get chatty. But Ahaan tried to take all the chattiness onto himself. Her tests, though, were damn good,” he was quoted as saying.
On the box office front, Saiyaara crossed Rs 100-crore mark in just four days and continues to have successful run in cinema halls.
