Manish Wadhwa of Gadar 2 fame opened up on how some people advised him to reject the sequel since Sunny Deol and the film’s director Anil Sharma had not been much active in the industry in recent times.
After 22 years, filmmaker Anil Sharma recently helmed Gadar 2, a sequel to his 2001 blockbuster (Gadar) with Sunny Deol and Ameesha Patel reprising their roles of Tara Singh and Sakina respectively. However this time, the action drama had Manish Wadhwa stepping in to play the main antagonist in absence of late actor Amrish Puri.
In a recent interview with an entertainment portal, Manish opened up on being offered this film and shared that he was advised by some people to turn down the film as Sunny, Ameesha and Anil hadn’t been much active in the industry lately.
The actor told Bollywood Thikana, “I felt that something good was going to happen. But some people also told me, ‘Manish, you should wait, don’t do this.’ Gadar is coming out after 22 years, we don’t know what will happen. Anil Sharma is not active in the market and there is Sunny Deol, he has also not done anything recently, neither has Ameesha Patel.’”
Speaking about the film’s box office success, Manish said that while he knew that something good will happen, he didn’t know that things will escalate to this level.
Further, during the course of the chat, the Pathaan actor also shared how Gadar 2 came his way. He said that he was cast for the role after the first schedule of the film was already wrapped up.
Manish told the portal, “They were looking hard for a villain. They searched for one in the South also, but they didn’t find the right person to play Hamid Iqbal.”
Later, when the film’s fight director Ravi Verma was shown a clip of Wadhwa from his film, Nani-Sai Pallavi starrer Shyam Singha Roy, he instantly liked it and fixed the actor’s meeting with Anil Sharma. The filmmaker recognised him as Chanakya and told him, “You have good Hindi, you have a good voice, you are exactly what I want. But, you will have to meet Sunny Deol first since he is quite worried about who will play the villain in the film.”
Before meeting Sunny Deol, Manish already filmed a couple of scenes of Hamid Iqbal since Anil Sharma was confident that the Border actor would like him. Later, when Sunny met Manish, he revealed that he has seen his work and called him a good actor. At the same time, he also asked him if he was ready to take the responsibility of making an impact like how late Amrish Puri did with Ashraf Ali. Manish assured him that he would ace the part under the guidance of Sharma and Deol, and bagged the role.
Eventually, Gadar 2 received a thumbs up from the audience upon its release. The film is now heading towards Rs 400 Crore mark.
