The casting of Sanjay Leela Bhansali's historic opus Bajirao Mastani just got even more interesting. Beating the formidable Shabana Azmi to it, her sister-in-law the very talented Tanvi Azmi has been signed by SLB to play the pivotal role of Bajirao's mother Radhabai.
This bit of key casting was keenly monitored by industry insiders. Names like Shabana Azmi, Dimple Kapadia and Supriya Pathak were considered for the part.
Shabana Azmi who was the first choice for the part was finally not chosen because the director is too intimidated by her personality to direct her.
Interestingly Imtiaz Ali gives the same reason for not working with Shabana.
Revealing details of how the grossly under-utilized Tanvi bagged the very important role, a source from the Bajiao Mastani team reveals, "Supriyaji was out because SLB had already worked his magic on her talents in Ram Leela. Getting Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone, Priyanka Chopra and Surpriya Pathak together again in Bajirao Mastani after Ram Leela would have been too much of an instant replay."
Dimple Kapadia's personality was apparently found to be too urbane for the role.
Tanvi Azmi was finally seen as the best choice for the strong domineering part of Bajirao's mother.
Before being signed on, she had to go through a compatibility test with Ranveer Singh to see whether they looked like mother and son. The two hit it off from the word go.
