Fanney Khan: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra says 'who better than Aishwarya Rai to play star singer'

Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s upcoming production Fanney Khan marks the debut of director Atul Manjrekar and 18-year-old actress Piyu Sand. The musical will also bring together Anil Kapoor and Aishwarya Rai on screen after a gap of 17 years. Not just that, it will also be the first film to have Rajkummar Rao play husband to Rai. After having managed to get such a diverse set artists together, Mehra speaks about the original, the process of getting the casting right in a Mumbai Mirror interview. [caption id=“attachment_4011547” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Anil Kapoor and Aishwarya Rai. Image from Twitter.[/caption] He says he was always confident that the 2000 Dutch film Everybody’s Famous had the potential to be turned into a brilliant Hindi film, right after watching the original. The film is based on the adventures of a father who kidnaps the country’s top singer to kick-start his own daughter’s singing career. Kapoor plays the father, while Divya Dutta takes on the role of his wife. Rai plays the star singer and Sand plays the aspiring singer. Casting Kapoor as the father and Rai as the enchanting singer was a sure shot for the Mehra. “Since everybody wants to be famous, who better than Ash to play the star singer,” he tells Mumbai Mirror. The makers stumbled upon Sand after holding auditions for over five to six months. He doesn’t promise that the young actress will become an overnight star, but does vouch for her acting and dancing skills. Since the film is heavily influenced by music, Amit Trivedi has been entrusted with the responsibility of composing an evocative score, while Irshad Kamil is handling the lyrics. Read the whole interview here. The producer hopes to finish shooting by October and ready the film for release by summer 2018.