No star kids in Ferrari Ki Sawaari

Makers audition children from Darsheel Safary’s school, but give strict instructions to not cast Taare Zameen Par young star.

Filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra wants to keep the name of the child artiste, who will star in his next production Ferrari Ki Sawaari, a surprise until the release of the film. And in order to make it clear that the makers do not want any known or star kids in the film, the production team has been given strict instructions to not allow Darsheel Safary of Taare Zameen Par (2007) fame, join his classmates for the auditions that are taking place at his school in South Mumbai.



A choir song sequence in the film requires 100 students and a source from the unit reveals that the casting team visited Safary’s school to audition children from class four to nine. Though the 100 young actors have been picked from various schools around the city, quite a few have been chosen from the institution Safary studies in.

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Initially, director Rajesh Mapuskar didn’t know that his casting crew had landed up in Safary’s school. "My production team handled the kids’ recruitment. So I was aware that we got kids from a school, but I didn’t know that Darsheel Safary studies there," he says.



The idea is to star someone who is not a known face. The source adds, "It wouldn’t have been fair for the kid in our film to feature alongside a known child actor in the film or for Darsheel to be a part of a small shot like that."



The film, which also marks actor Sharman Joshi’s solo lead in a film, is Mapuskar’s debut directorial venture. Before this, the director has worked closely with Rajkumar Hirani on Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006) and 3 Idiots (2009).