15 years of Dor: Shreyas Talpade reveals he wasn’t the first choice to play the lead part in the film

Some films find their way to actors, and that’s how Dor (2006) happened to Shreyas Talpade, even though he wasn’t initially part of the film.

Reminiscing about his part and collaborating with filmmaker Nagesh Kukunoor after Iqbal (2005), Talpade, who plays the role of Bahuroopiya, a multifaceted personality, who plays an important role in helping Zeenat (Gul Panag) find Meera (Ayesha Takia), says, “It’s been 15 years already. This is unreal. I tend to remember the film, but not the (number of) years.”

He further shares, “There are a lot of things that happened with Dor and around the film. I consider it my personal favourite. It is one of those films that remain special. With Dor, I saw a different Nagesh Kukunoor as a director. I wasn’t the first choice for my character Bahuroopiya in the film.”

The 46-year-old reveals that the director wanted a senior actor for the role. “I had formed a rapport with Nagesh after Iqbal and I was like, ‘How can I not be part of the film?’ He told me that he was looking at someone else for the character of Bahuroopiya and offered me to play one of the husbands of the two female characters Zeenat or Meera. But, after a week, he offered Bahuroopiya to me. He told me that since I anyway do a lot of mimicry in real life, I might as well use it in the film,” the actor says.

And there was an icing on the cake, too, for Talpade, in addition to the mimicry. “Nagesh gave me a lot of freedom to improvise. He even told me to write the lines. I improvised a lot while working on Dor. As an actor, if you get the chance to do so, it is all the more special. Plus, shooting in Jodhpur and Pushkar was amazing, too,” he ends.