Vidhu Vinod Chopra: Sanjay Dutt, banned by industry, was willing to do anything to relaunch career

Filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra has revealed how Sanjay Dutt got the role of Munna Bhai despite facing a ban from the industry due to a legal issue. Chopra disagreed with the ban and decided to cast Dutt in a project to support him. Initially, Dutt was supposed to play a different role, but it eventually went to Jimmy Shergill , while Shah Rukh Khan was considered for the lead role of Munna Bhai.

During a conversation at the Kellogg Management School, the filmmaker admitted that Sanjay Dutt wasn't initially preferred for the film. Consequently, when Dutt was released from jail and expressed his willingness to work, he was informed by Chopra that they would have to wait before collaborating. Chopra said, “Sanjay Dutt went to jail. I didn’t know him at all. The whole industry banned him, but I thought this was very wrong, so I went to his house and announced a film with him. His father said that I’ll be banned as well, but I said, ‘I don’t care’."

He continued, “Then, Sanjay Dutt comes out of jail. I remember him calling me from the car. He said he wanted to meet, and he wanted his first comeback film to be with me. I told him, ‘I’ll never make a film with you, I just announced it because it was the right thing to do’. He’s a very simple man. A good man, but a simple man. He thought the announcement meant that we were actually going to work together. I said, ‘I cannot make a film with you unless the equation changes, because I cannot exploit a good deed’. It’s a terrible thing to do, that you do something good and exploit it.”

The filmmaker admitted, “So, when I told him to do Jimmy Shergill’s role, he agreed. He said, ‘Anything’. Then, Shah Rukh, of course, came to me and he had a throat thing… So, I decided that Sanjay Dutt is the right guy. I told him, ‘You’re doing Munna Bhai’. And he’s such a simple fellow, he said, ‘I know’. I said, ‘No, not that role, main Munna Bhai’. He said, ‘Okay, if you say so, I’ll do it’. He never reads a script…”

Directed by Rajkumar Hirani, Munna Bhai MBBS released in 2003. Apart from Sanjay Dutt and Jimmy Shergill, this entertainer also starred Gracy Singh, Sunil Dutt, Boman Irani and Rohini Hattangadi among others.