Bollywood star Ranbir Kapoor will play the role of Kishore Kumar in director Anurag Basu’s biopic on the legendary singer-actor.
“Ranbir, UTV and I, all three of us are committed to make this film. Ranbir is busy, he is doing two films in between. After ‘Barfi’, Ranbir and I will come together again for this movie,” Basu said.
“I have started writing it (the script). It is a very tough job to write this as the whole world will be looking at my work,” said the director.
Born as Abhas Kumar Ganguly, the legendary singer changed his name to Kishore Kumar and started his career as a chorus singer at Bombay Talkies.
“The film will have madness of Kishore-da. I am lucky that this came to me. UTV was planning this movie; Shomit had written a script. I am a big fan of him (Kishore Kumar). I think he was the most colourful person, so full of life. It will be a very entertaining film,” Basu said.
Basu clinched the project with Ranbir during the shooting of his just-released film “Barfi”, starring Ranbir Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra. “I had locked this film with Ranbir when ‘Barfi’ was only one schedule old. I had offered it to him and he liked the idea very much and consented to do it,” Basu said.
Ranbir will have to change his look to get into the boots of the stalwart singer.
“We did some look test of young Kishore Kumar on him (Ranbir). We have gone through several such processes before zeroing in on him to play Kishore-da on screen,” the director said.
“It is a biopic and so we are not taking the liberty to make our own story. There are a lot of things that people don’t know about him,” Basu said, adding Kishore Kumar’s son Amit Kumar is involved at every stage to provide inputs for the film.
Basu said the late singer’s “family does not have a problem with the film. They have already given the green signal. They are helping us out a lot with his personal things, secrets, which the people are not aware of.”
Kishore Kumar had married four times. His first wife was Bengali singer and actress Ruma Guha Thakurta and their marriage lasted from 1950 to 1958. He later married actress Madhubala who had worked with him in many films including his home production “Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi” (1958) and “Jhumroo” (1961). The marriage lasted nine years, ending with Madhubala’s death in 1969. Later, Kishore married Yogeeta Bali in 1976 but separated in 1978. Then he was married to actress Leena Chandavarkar from 1980 until his death. He left behind two sons, Amit Kumar (playback singer) with Ruma, and Sumit Kumar with Leena.
Speculation is rife that Katrina Kaif will play Madhubala in the film but there is no confirmation of this from Basu.
-With The Daily Star input
