The 2002 film ‘Ankhen’ is considered a cult hit. He acted in the film Amitabh Bachchan, Sushmita SenArjun Rampal, Akshay Kumar, Paresh Rawal Still loved for its unique plot and treatment. It revolved around three blind men to rob a bank after being trained and recruited by Bachchan’s character. Although the film received a lot of love, did you know that the character played by Paresh Rawal was originally played by Paresh Ganatra. The film was based on a Gujarati drama titled ‘Andro Payo’, in which Ganatra played the role. During an exclusive chat with ETimes, while Paresh talks about his latest web series ‘Made in India: A Titan Story’, the actor talks about his journey into films. He started with theater followed by many television shows and then movies like ‘No Entry’, ‘Welcome’. When asked about his role in ‘Aankhe’, he shared, “Aankhe was a film based on my Gujarati play ‘Andho Payo’. When they were making the film on a small scale, they said that I would play the role of Ilyas, played by Paresh Rawal, because I played that role in the play. I was very happy because that play was a big hit. But then Mr Bachchan said yes to the film and he was approached as he was the ideal choice for it. When Mr. Bachchan said yes and came on board, director Vipul Shah explained to me that now the film will be mounted on a different scale.” He further added, “I completely understood and it was clear that the rest of the cast needed the same. However, I told him that since the film was based on my play in which I played an important role, I needed some role in the film. That’s when they gave me the role of Shailesh and people really liked it. They still remember it.” Ganatra recalls how things finally fell into place. “After seeing me draw my character based on Shailesh, Anees Bazmi Called me and gave ‘no entry’. He says there are only two scenes but please, I won’t cut. But he liked my work so much that he put more of my scenes in ‘No Entry’ and I shot for 21 days with them. ‘No Entry’ also stars Anil Kapoor, Fardeen Khan, Salman Khan, Bipasha Basu, Esha Deol and Celina Jaitley.
