‘Stree 2’ actor Abhishek Banerjee reveals he was once sacked by Karan Johar for creative differences
Abhishek Banerjee is on top of the world, as his recent film ‘Stree 2’ is shattering box-office records left, right, and centre.
However, the actor-casting director’s career was on the precipice after he was unceremoniously fired from a lucrative project by Karan Johar’s production house, Dharma Productions.
Banerjee was responsible for casting in films such as Vidya Balan’s ‘The Dirty Picture’ and Rani Mukerji’s ‘No One Killed Jessica’. However, he once believed his career was over after being dismissed by Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions from the project ‘Agneepath’, which starred Hrithik Roshan and Priyanka Chopra.
Abhishek Banerjee, who served as the casting director for the film, revealed to Siddharth Kannan, «We were removed from ‘Agneepath’. We were handling the casting, but then Jogi (Mallang) bhai took over. Why were we let go? Because Karan sir wasn’t satisfied with our casting choices.»
“We were casting Anurag Kashyap-type actors. He didn’t like it and said, ‘Nikal jaao humaari film se (get out of our film)’. We thought our career was barbaad, khatam (our career was over) because we were thrown out of Dharma (productions). We thought we were done, but thankfully, we survived,” he added.
Since the film was produced by Karan Johar and directed by Karan Malhotra, it’s unclear which Karan he was referring to. Abhishek Banerjee is also the co-founder of a casting agency named Casting Bay. Recently, he worked as the casting director for Priyanka Chopra and Farhan Akhtar's ‘The Sky is Pink’ and the web
