Filmmaker Umesh Shukla revealed that Akshay Kumar wasn’t keen on portraying the role of Lord Krishna in their 2012 film OMG – Oh My God! Initially, Akshay had doubts because Amitabh Bachchan, who played God in God Tussi Great Ho (2008), did not receive much praise for his performance. Umesh is currently promoting his upcoming film Aankh Micholi, starring Abhimanyu Dassani, Paresh Rawal, Mrunal Thakur, Divya Dutta, Vijay Raaz, Abhishek Banerjee, and Sharman Joshi.
Recalling the moment he approached Akshay Kumar for the role of Krishna in OMG, Umesh, during a chat with Hindustan Times, shared, “When we told Akshay bhai about this, initially he had that thing. ‘This is a God, how will I play God’s character?’ He was in a double mind at that time, because there was another film that had released around that time and it featured Bachchan sir as a God but it did not quite work. So he (Akshay) thought ‘How will I play God’s character when Bachchan sir could not’. For him, it was like this. But when he saw the play (Kanji Virudh Kanji, Umesh Shukla’s play on which the film was based), he understood. It (Akshay’s role) was a quite fleshed-out character. So he agreed soon.”
Amitabh Bachchan portrayed the character of God in the 2008 film God Tussi Great Ho, which starred Salman Khan and Priyanka Chopra. Directed by Rumi Jaffery, the film also included Beena Kak and Anupam Kher in the cast. Unfortunately, God Tussi Great Ho failed to impress at the box office and ended up being one of the biggest flops of that year.
On being asked if he was skeptical of creating a God’s character, Umesh said, “No, I didn’t get it (while making the film). Because I had already done the play. My homework was already ready. I had seen its live response in the play. So in the experiment, it was like this – I get an audience (who buy) tickets worth ₹50 and then there are those who buy tickets for ₹500 or even ₹750 maybe. (I had seen the) unanimous reaction of all those people. So I was not really skeptical. Of course, when I was (skeptical) while writing it. When we were creating the character.”
A few years back, there were rumours that Umesh had a concept for OMG 2 and was in discussions with the producers. However, the discussions didn’t come to fruition and Amit Rai made the sequel that was released earlier this year. Refuting the claims, he said, “No, no, no. I was working on some other script. That’s why it didn’t materialise. And this film (OMG 2) is also very good. Very good. And Amit (director Amit Rai) is a very dear friend who made the film. He made a very good film. The characters were (already) in place, they were already there. What was the best thing to do about it then? (Get a good script involving those characters) And, he (Amit) came up with a really good script. And it really worked.”
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