Pankaj Jha has earned accolades for playing the role of Vidhayak in the Amazon Prime Video series Panchayat. Recently, the actor had revealed that he was the first choice to play Sultan Qureshi in Anurag Kashyap's two-part crime saga Gangs of Wasseypur, but he was replaced with Pankaj Tripathi just before the shoot began. He even took a dig at Kashyap calling him 'spineless' for doing so.
Now, in a recent interview, Kashyap has shared his side of the story and explained why he had to replace one Pankaj (Jha) with another Pankaj (Tripathi) at the last moment. Talking to IndiaToday.in, the Bombay Velvet director said, "I don’t remember what exactly happened. But we were shooting for The Girl in Yellow Boots and he (Pankaj Jha) had moved to Osho in Pune to paint. We were supposed to start shooting for Gangs of Wasseypur and he was not available. We were on a tight budget and could not wait for him. We made the film in a very different condition and budget. Now he may be thinking after 20 years, he could have become Pankaj Tripathi."
Adding that he would love to work with the Panchayat actor in future, Kashyap added, "I have worked with him, and he has actually been my go-to actor. We worked in Gulaal and Black Friday. I would love to work with him again, but the fact is, he is not accessible at all."
Meanwhile, Kashyap will be seen next playing the antagonist role of the gangster Kabze in the web series Bad Cop. The series, which also features Gulshan Devaiah in the double roles of a cop named Karan and a thief named Arjun, will start streaming on Disney+ Hotstar from June 21.
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