Come & Guess: Bollywood Blind Item

In an interview with Hindustan Times, Rajeev Khandelwal spoke about the casting couch:

His statement is not entirely wrong, he does make some sense but we are not going to divulge in that.

What was interesting, Rajeev drops a bombshell in this interview:

Rajeev was reminded of his own casting couch experience while discussing the #MeToo movement recently. “The incident gave me flashes of a once-upon-a-time super director who had offered me a movie back then when I did not start doing films,” he said.

This is what happened when he was called into the filmmaker’s home office to discuss the film.

“Next time, he called me from his office to his room, and then he made me sit there and decided not to give me the story, instead asked me to decide whether I want to do the movie based on one song,” he said.

Rajeev went on to say that he did not give projects a nod without reading a script, and when he made this known to the filmmaker, he lashed out at him. “By the second meeting, I had realised things were just not alright. It turned into a hilarious situation as well. I found myself feeling how any woman in my place would have felt. He asked me to go to his room which I refused to. I dropped names and mentioned that I have a girlfriend back then waiting for me so that the guy knows that I am straight,” he shared.

That’s not all, when the director heard Rajeev was doing ‘Aamir’ he contacted him again.

“Later, he offered me a two-film deal, saying that he had heard that I was doing a small budget-movie, which was Aamir, at that time. I replied to him saying that I was happy with my small budget movie. I don’t know what happened to his film when it came out,” the actor said.

Rajeev was quite a happening actor years ago. He was very famous as a television actor and when he made his debut in ‘Aamir’, everyone stood and noticed his talent. He was also in ‘Soundtrack’ and ‘Shaitan’.

This begs the question, does every actor, with no godfather and connection, who work with big banners have to compromise? If a famous and talented actor like Rajeev had to refuse such proposals and make do with small-budget films, what do the others have to do?

Back to the blind item that Rajeev disclosed twice this month, who is this famous director that he was talking about? The director sounds like a man with a big ego and he also sounds like the same filmmaker who developed a liking to this Pakistani actor (no, not the one you are thinking about).

Can you guess who this is about?