Gadar 2: How director Anil Sharma struggled to find Amrish Puri’s replacement, finalized on Manish Wadhwa with Sunny Deol

Sunny Deol’s 2001 film Gadar: Ek Prem Katha became iconic. While his character Tara Singh is the most remembered, Amrish Puri as Mayor Ashraf Ali was as iconic in his villainous role as any. Manish Wadhwa has currently replaced him as the villain in Gadar 2.

At a recent event, director Anil Sharma spoke about how it was difficult to find a new villain after Amrish Puri’s passing away. He rejected many, before finalizing on Manish. Sunny Deol met and approved of the Chandragupt Maurya actor too.

Anil started by stating, “It is impossible to find Amrish Puri’s replacement. Like I said, there can’t be another Sakeena. Similarly, it is impossible to replace Amrish ji.”

He then shared, “I’m missing him a lot. If he were alive, we would have made sure that he would be a part of our film.”

Since Amrish Puri was iconic, many asked the director who will the film’s villain be. However, for the moment, the director shifted the focus to what the music of Gadar 2 would be like. He said, “All of India asked me two questions – Who will the film’s villain be? and What will the music of this movie be like? They were worried if it could match the music of Gadar 1.”

He further shared details about how Manish came on board. The filmmaker said, “I searched a lot. We started working on the story and were ready for shoot but couldn’t find an actor to play the villain. We did many screen tests across India but we just couldn’t find anyone.”

Remembering of the day and process of finalizing their film’s villain, Anil spilled, “That is when Sunny Deol called me in Manali for a discussion. Ravi Varma showed me a video from a South Indian movie. I liked the scene and wanted to know who the actor was. I spoke to him on call and called him the very next day. Sunny also approved of him. Manish (Wadhwa) then did the tests and even met with Sunny Deol before being finalized for the film.”

Apart from Amrish Puri, Gadar 1 was also iconic because Om Puri had voiced the film. Both the legendary actors are no more with us but live through their roles, including Gadar 1.