Mumbai: ‘Fateh’ actor-director Sonu Sood, who is busy promoting his directorial debut, recently revealed that the iconic cop character of Chulbul Pandey in ‘Dabangg’ was written for him.
During a conversation with Shubhankar Mishra on his YouTube show, Sonu divulged that when producer Arbaaz Khan narrated the story of ‘Dabangg’ to Salman, the latter liked the character of Chulbul so much that he took the role.
“Abhinav Kashyap (Dabangg’s director) was an assistant to Mani Ratnam earlier. He was a very good friend of mine. He told me that I am writing a cop story with the name Chulbul, we will do it together. I was also excited and told him that we would do it,” shared Sonu.
Arbaaz later told everyone that Salman wanted to play the role of Chulbul Pandey and the role was given to him at the last minute.
Not just the lead role, Salman also took over the item song ‘Munni Badnaam Hui’ which was to feature Sonu initially.
The ‘Fateh’ actor shared that after having Salman on board for the lead role, the ‘Dabangg’ makers approached him for playing the antagonist Chhedi Singh. At first, Sonu refused to play the negative character, but later agreed to do it on certain conditions.
“They asked me, ‘What is the problem with the role, why aren’t you doing it?’ I asked Abhinav to twist the role a bit. Let’s write it more for the next 2–3 days. If I understand it, then I’ll do it. And, I need a song in the film. I asked them to include an item number. When Farah (Farah Khan, choreographer-filmmaker) was making the song, I was conversing with her about including certain steps and how it should be a hit,” he said.
But Salman took over the item song also at the last minute.
“Abhinav came with one good and one bad news. Good news about one of the scenes and bad one about Salman taking the song. I said, ‘It is my song, how will he come in between like that’. He said that he will do it through a raid scene. I told them that it’s wrong, I only had one song. But finally, whatever happened, happened or the good. People still remember the song,” said the actor.
Sonu delivered an impressive performance as Chhedi Singh in ‘Dabangg’ and his character was loved by both critics and movie buffs.
‘Dabangg’ also featured Sonakshi Sinha, Vinod Khanna and Dimple Kapadia in key roles.
