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Rang De Basanti is one of the critically acclaimed Bollywood movies of all time. The socio-political movie is about six young Indians who help and guide an English documentary filmmaker on the Indian freedom fighters, which led them to relive the forgotten saga of freedom. Rang De Basanti has a stellar cast of actors including Aamir Khan, Soha Ali Khan, Sharman Joshi, Siddharth, Kunal Kapoor and R Madhavan in pivotal roles. Recently, an interesting fact came across after 19 years of theatrical release that Aamir Khan was not the first choice for the movie. It was Gangs Of Wasseypur actor Manoj Bajpayee, who initially signed the film, but the role eventually landed to Aamir Khan. 

In an interview with Ravya Sarda, Rang De Basanti screenwriter Kamlesh Pandey said “We had been roaming around with the script of the film for 6 years, and no one was ready to make that film. We had signed Manoj for the role that Aamir played finally. We thought we would make a small film; we didn’t have a big budget. The moment Aamir heard the script, he told us that he wanted to do the film, and he even got AR Rahman to come on the project. UTV, who had rejected the film twice in the past, immediately said yes to it.” 

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He further said, “Producers thought that this was a Sholay remake from the point of view of Basanti. They used to make fun of it and ask who was going to play her, and I used to tell them with a straight face that we were thinking of casting Esha Deol. They used to take it so seriously, and I didn’t really know whether to slap these people or ignore them.”

Apart from Manoj, Randeep Hooda was initially set to play the role of Karan (played by Siddharth). The actor himself said that he rejected the movie. He told Shubhankar Mishra on his podcast, “I lost that film because I didn’t want to play second fiddle to Aamir. That was my Jaat akad speaking. I also lost Rock On because of that.”

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Rang De Basanti was directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra and produced by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, Ronnie Screwvala. It was released on January 26, 2006. The music of the film was composed by AR Rahman. The movie had a box office collection of Rs 97.90 crore.