From the time the trailer of Bob Biswas dropped, while the fans are excited to watch Abhishek Bachchan as a contract killer, there is a different kind of curiosity around the film over its casting. The film is a spin-off to the earlier Kahaani released in 2012, in which Bob's character was portrayed by Saswata Chatterjee. Despite being a Bengali actor without having any presence in Hindi film before, the character and the performance of Saswata were so appreciated by the audience nationwide, it was only natural to expect him to see as 'Bob Biswas', as the face of the character.
However, the news of Abhishek will be playing the title role of Bob Biswas surfaced in 2019. Talking about why Abhishek is cast, writer Sujoy Ghosh told, "I am saying it is not impossible to recreate the world of Bob Biswas where Saswata, who played Bob earlier, can be cast. In fact, if I was helming the film, Saswata would have been a choice, but Diya is directing the film and this is the choice she made. She has her vision to the film. Our idea is to create a new film, in which the world of Bob is different from what we have seen in Kahaani."
He added, “It was a very conscious decision of casting a new actor to play Bob Biswas because I wanted to move away from Kahaani, this is not that film. The world of this film is different. This is a new film, which has its own standing. Through this film, we have attempted to create a new world of Bob Biswas which has a fresh new perspective to the story. That is in fact, one of the reasons why I did not direct the film. In the earlier film, when the introduction of Bob happened he only had a presence of eight minutes. Now, we have a full story on him.”
The film is written by Sujoy and directed by Diya Annapurna Ghosh. This is the first time the fans will get to see Abhishek in a never-seen-before avatar in which his look is almost unrecognizable as a semi-bald and overweight middle-aged man. Produced by Red Chillies Entertainment, Bob Biswas also features Chitrangada Singh, Paran Bandopadhyay, and Tina Desai, among others. It releases on December 3 on ZEE5.
(Source: Indian Express)
