Sanjay Leela Bhansali has been dreaming of making his biopic on the Peshwa, Bajirao and his wife Mastani for nearly a decade. In these 10 years,there has been extensive reporting on this movie, and so has SLB's wish-list for his lead players to play Bajirao.
SLB had started talking aboutthis dream project soon after “Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam” (1999) and had wanted his original favourite SalmanKhan as the lead actor and Kareena Kapoor to play Mastani.
An insider said, "Salman and Kareena even did the photo-shoot in the attire at a five-star hotel in Juhu.'' However, the filmdidn't take off and when Sanjay wanted to revive it, Salman who was dating Katrina Kaif had insisted he consider Kat instead of Bebo.
In the years gone by, this film has been one of the mostspeculated movies and the casting for the lead roles seems to have done acomplete round of the top brass in Bollywood.Post "Black", there was talkof SLB wanting the Bachchans for this dream historical project and later therewas speculation that he may even consider Salman's bete noire and his own “Devdas”, Shah Rukh Khan forthe role of Bajirao. The latest card that has been opened in this drama revealsthat SLB is reportedly in talks with Ajay Devgn, the other leading man of HDDCSfor the role of the famous Peshwa. And of course we also hear that Kat, who nowspeaks Hindi adeptly, may be Mastani.
SLB who is eating, sleeping, breathing “Ram Leela” (the RanveerSingh-Deepika Padukone film) that will roll this August, is obviously in nomood to throw light on his next project. But an insider tells us that “Bajirao-Mastani” is very muchon the anvil, and yes Ajay and Sanjay have been "in talks''.
