Sushant Singh Rajput to work with Ekta Kapoor months after turning down Half Girlfriend

While Sushant Singh Rajput is gearing up for Dinesh Vijan’s romantic thriller Raabta, he would have been seen sporting a Bihari accent in Mohit Suri’s romantic comedy Half Girlfriend that released this past Friday.

Bollywood Life reports that Ekta Kapoor, the co-producer of Half Girlfriend, had initially approached Rajput for the lead role of Madhav Jha, which was eventually played by Arjun Kapoor. Ekta had introduced Rajput on the small screen with Pavitra Rishta, a television soap under her banner Balaji Telefilms, much before he made his Hindi film debut with Abhishek Kapoor’s 2013 buddy film Kai Po Che.

Interestingly, both Kai Po Che and Half Girlfriend were based on bestselling novels of the same writer - Chetan Bhagat. Realising that Rajput had not worked in any of Ekta’s films under her film production banner, Balaji Motion Pictures, Ekta approached Rjaput for a role which he turned down.

DNA quotes Rajput as saying, “I liked the script and I was doing it but at the same time I think there were dates issues, so I was almost for no fault of mine put in a position to choose between two films, which were equally good. But just because I said yes to Raabta first, it made much more sense to stick with that.”

While Ekta reportedly did not take Rajput’s decision too lightly, the two kissed and made up at a party three months ago. The report by DNA states that Rajput has confirmed that he met Ekta recently and they are planning to collaborate for a film in the near future.

However, the details of the film are not out yet.

Rajput’s next, Raabta, also stars Kriti Sanon, Jim Sarbh and Varun Sharma with cameos by Deepika Padukone and Rajkummar Rao. It is co-produced by T-Series Films and Maddock Films. It is slated to release on 9 June.