When Rani Mukerji Was To Co-Star With Ben Affleck

There was a time when our desi filmmakers would ambitiously announce films with A-listers from Hollywood. Now, of course, they can’t do it — they get sued for it.

Dev (Split Wide Open) Benegal was all set to team Rani Mukerji with, ahem, Ben Affleck.

Benegal (no relation to Shyam) had told this writer, “It’s a romantic comedy with three characters — a man, a woman, and an Ambassador car — in English, entitled Bombay California. It’ll feature Rani Mukerji with either Ben Affleck or Ethan Hawke.”

Both the Hollywood pin-up idols had consented to Benegal. Affleck was more likely to be Rani’s co-star.

Then there was Aishwarya Rai, who was supposed to be doing Gurinder Chadha’s Bride & Prejudice with, ahem, Joaquin Phoenix. Her co-star finally ended up being Martin Henderson.

But the most hilarious Hollywood heavyweight hoax was the project that Sudipto (Kerala Story) announced through this writer with Russell Crowe in the lead.

According to Sen, Crowe was to play a middle-aged German writer who travels to the Kumbh Mela to attain moksha and falls in love with a 21-year-old Bengali girl, to be played by Paoli Dam. Apparently, another very fine actor, the German star Michal Zebrowski—who played the Nazi officer in Roman Polanski’s The Pianist — was almost finalised for the role. But, according to Sen, Russell Crowe showed a “keen interest” in the project, and the cast was suitably revised.

Needless to say, Sen’s Crowe-helmed project, entitled Kumbh Mela, never materialized.

In fact, the only Indian actor to have played the lead with a Hollywood A-lister is Om Puri. He worked with the great Helen Mirren in The Hundred-Foot Journey. When Om passed away, the distinguished actress paid him rich tributes.

I doubt Russell Crowe will mention Sudipto Sen in his will.