Manoj Bajpayee was to play Nawazuddin Siddiqui's role in Gangs of Wasseypur, reveals Hansal Mehta

Hansal Mehta has planned to make Gangs of Wasseypur initially

Hansal Mehta's son Jai Mehta has made his directorial debut with the Disney+ Hotstar web series, Lootere. Jai has worked on many projects with his father, and other filmmakers, before making his official debut. While talking about how he went about pursuing his dreams, father Hansal Mehta shared that when Jai revealed his plans to follow in his footsteps, he had to choose between an internship with Dharma Production and working on Gangs of Wasseupur with Anurag Kashyap.

Guess which one he chose?

Jai was supposed to fly to Australia on a paid internship for We Are Family. Instead, he went to Wasseypur with Zeeshan Qadri, the writer. Hansal narrated, "When he met Anurag, he called me and said, 'Achhi filmein dekhta hai, bhej do mere paas.' I asked Jai, choose now between Dharma and Anurag. He did not hesitate for a second. He went to Dhanbad with Zeeshan Qadri, and the other two writers."

"We were there for two-and-a-half months, doing the research on the film," Jai added.

Gangs of Wasseypur was the first film for so many actors. "Jaideep Ahlawat, Pankaj Tripathi, Huma Qureshi, Nawazuddin's first lead in the real sense. It was a big revival for Manoj Bajpayee as well... Zeeshan Qadri had come to me with that story. It's there in the book on Gangs of Wasseypur. He first came to me, we worked on it for a few months. I called Manoj and asked if he would do the film. He said he was willing, and wanted to invest in the film too. I was not sure how to raise money for the film.

"Meanwhile, Zeeshan met Anurag, who called me, ki sir aap bana rahe ho toh, main nahi banata hoon. I said yaar, I don't have a producer, it's an impractical dream. So I said, ek hi request hai yaar, please, Manoj ko le le, because it's a film I promised Manoj. Anurag had UTV backing him. In the original story, Sardar Khan was only in the first scene, the rest was about Faisal. Anurag made it into an origin story for Sardar Khan, which became part 1 of GOW... Manoj was supposed to play Faisal's role initially," Hansal shared.