EXCLUSIVE: Abhinay Deo confirms Ranbir Kapoor being a contender for Delhi Belly, opens up about taking 7-8 auditions to cast Imran Khan

It has been 10 years since Delhi Belly released. When the film had hit the theatres, it was something that the audience had never seen before- be it the realistic presentation or the use of Hinglish as its language or even the choice of not having an interval. Now, as the film competes a decade, director Abhinay Deo revealed that Imran Khan and Vir Khan had to go through some grueling auditions before they had been finalised. He also opened up on whether Ranbir Kapoor was approached for the lead role.

In an exclusive chat with us, Abhinay confirmed that Ranbir was indeed being considered for the lead role in Delhi Belly. He revealed, "Ranbir was definitely approached. Any casting process, particularly this film's casting process was very exhaustively long and ardous. We really wanted to make sure that we cast the right person and it was a big list of guys. It's not like you just cast a hero and a heroine and everything else falls into place. In the process of casting, there were multiple people who were considered. Yes, Ranbir was considered but it didn't work out. We had met him as well and he was approached but things for various reasons did not work out."

Abhinay also added that the cast had to go through multiple auditions and this was one film where the entire team was asked to audition for scenes together. Abhinay said, "Delhi Belly was one of the rare films where more than the casting it was the film that worked. While Imran was already a star, he had given a hit like Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na and he was the young, new heartthrob, but I was using it for a very different purpose. He wasn't the sweet boy next door, he had an edge to his character. We didn't want to go with actors who were established. For most of them, using this kind of language would have been a problem. I wanted fresh faces so that people wouldn't know what to expect. Kunal was absolutely divine in the film, so was Imran. We had everybody absolutely perfect in their place. We auditioned everybody and it was a grilling audition in the sense that three scenes would be shot with everybody so we had to put people together. It was not individual auditions. Imran had auditioned 7-8 times, Vir Das and Kunal Roy Kapur auditioned close to 10 times. Poorna (Jagganathan) was one of the few people who did not audition that many times. But everyone else auditioned multiple times."

It was all worth it, isn't it? What's your favourite memory of the movie?