Bollywood actor Ranveer Singh is getting a lot of appreciation for his role in Kabir Khan directed “83” which got released on December 24 and has been performing pretty well on the box-office. There is no denying the fact that Ranveer Singh has worked pretty hard for his role as audiences are feeling that they are watching Kapil Dev in the movie and not Ranveer Singh. What makes it more noteworthy is that Ranveer Singh also practiced the bowling action of Kapil Dev to perfection.
However, you will be surprised to know that the first choice for playing the role of Kapil Dev was not Ranveer Singh but his close friend Arjun Kapoor.
The idea of making a movie on this subject was first conceived in 2014 by producer Vishnuvardhan Induri and national award-winning writer-director Sanjay Puran Singh Chauhan and their first choice was Arjun Kapoor for the role of Kapil Dev. Arjun Kapoor got finalized for the role and he also started taking cricket training for the role but in 2017, everything changed as Sanjay was replaced by Kabir Khan. As per Kabir Khan, the only actor that he had in mind for the role of Kapil Dev was Ranveer Singh and then the “Simmba” actor was approached for this role.
When Arjun Kapoor came to know that Ranveer Singh was getting contacted for the role, he requested Ranveer not to do the role but also said that it would be his call. This put Ranveer Singh in a pretty difficult situation because if he had refused the role, he would have lost once in a lifetime opportunity of playing a great role and if he had accepted it, his friend would have been unhappy.
However within six months, Ranveer Singh and Arjun Kapoor sorted out the matter in a mature manner with no hard feelings between them. Ranveer Singh accepted the role and as they say, the rest is history.
Deepika Padukone has played the character of Kapil Dev’s wife Romi Dev in the movie which is based on the real life story of the Indian cricket team that won the 1983 World Cup after defeating the two time champions West Indies in the finals.
Ranveer Singh certainly deserves to be praised for the hard work that he has put in. Agree?
