Home / Arts and Entertainment / Dinner Date Lands Newcomer Ahaan Panday Lead Role in Breakout Film
Dinner Date Lands Newcomer Ahaan Panday Lead Role in Breakout Film
20 Jul
Summary
- Mohit Suri initially hesitant to cast Ahaan Panday, but he won over the director
- Unconventional audition process involving a "formal dinner and a couple of beers"
- Panday's true character emerged when he let his guard down, impressing Suri
Mohit Suri's latest film "Saiyaara" has been a breakout success, featuring a newcomer in the lead role. However, the path to casting Ahaan Panday was not straightforward. Suri, the director, was initially hesitant about Panday, finding him too "nice and sweet" to embody the character.
But Suri's opinion changed after an unusual audition process. He invited Panday to a "formal dinner and a couple of beers," during which the young actor began to shed his polite demeanor. Suri then took Panday to a nightclub, where he saw the energy and spark he had been looking for. "By the end of the night, he was literally sitting on the bar - not the chair, the bar itself - and that's when I realised, this is my guy," Suri recalled.
The director admitted that it was only when Panday thought the audition was over and let his guard down that his true self emerged, fusing with Suri's vision for the character. "That's when the character started to take shape - not just as I had written him, but as a fusion of the script and who Ahaan truly is today," Suri explained.
"Saiyaara," starring Ahaan Panday and Aneet Padda, is currently running in theatres and has been declared a hit by audiences and critics alike.
