There is a widespread belief in the Mumbai film industry that the entire Hera Pheri3 casting crisis was a planned manoeuvre to draw attention to the project.
A topnotch producer-director tells this writer the entire exit and re-entry of Paresh Rawal in the project was planted. “His exit was very strange, his return to the project is even stranger. What was his problem with the project? Nobody knows, not even the director. It is not as if Paresh Rawal is doing only selected projects. In fact, he is part of the same producer (Firoz Nadiadwala)’s Welcome To The Jungle where is one of dozens of characters. He has no problem with that. But he had problems playing his iconic character in Hera Pheri? Paresh and Akshay are close friends. They have done innumerable films together. Why would they have an open spat over a project? No one knows what the problem was. Nobody knows how it was solved.”
I got in touch with Hera Pheri’s director Priyadarshan and his response was cryptic. “Even I’ve heard Paresh is back. I am undergoing Ayurvedic treatment in Kerala. I have no idea why he left and why he is back. I agreed to do Hera Pheri3 only because Akshay Kumar asked me to.”
