Well-known Bengali director Rituparno Ghosh is highly elated after managing to convince Jaya Bachchan and Naseeruddin Shah - two of his favourite actors - to join the cast of his second Hindi venture Sunglass.
"I've been dying to work with Jaya Bachchan and Naseeruddin Shah. They are now part of my Sunglass," Ghosh told IANS.
"Naseer is one of my favourite actors. And, in fact, I've planned a whole film with him in the central role for next year. For now he has kindly consented to be part of Sunglass," said Ghosh, who ventured into Hindi films with Raincoat, starring Aishwarya Rai and Ajay Devgan.
Sunglass, to be shot simultaneously in Hindi and Bengali, is Ghosh's first commercial venture. It also has Sanjay Suri, Konkona SenSharma and Raima Sen in the cast.
Naseer plays the owner of a curio shop who gives Konkona the pivotal sunglass that manoeuvres the story forward.
The actor par excellence, who says he is bored of film acting and looking with passionate amazement at a career in direction after Yun Hota To Kya Hota, is all smiles at the cameo.
"Ritu is a director I admire. When he hesitantly asked me to play this cameo, I happily agreed. Right now film acting doesn't excite me at all. I just feel happy being in films for friends like I did recently in Mixed Doubles. It was a walk-on part. But I stood by Rajat Kapoor just as he stood by me.
{{/usCountry}}"Ritu is a director I admire. When he hesitantly asked me to play this cameo, I happily agreed. Right now film acting doesn't excite me at all. I just feel happy being in films for friends like I did recently in Mixed Doubles. It was a walk-on part. But I stood by Rajat Kapoor just as he stood by me.
{{/usCountry}}"Again in Vishal Bharadwaj's Omkara it's a blink-and-you-miss-the-link kind of role. But there's a lot more in Omkara that I wanted to be part of. It's going to be a very important film. I'm sure I'll enjoy working with Ritu. I admire Ritu. He is one of the finest filmmakers of the country."