By anjali
Ankita Lokhande is currently being praised for her performance as Yamunabai in Randeep Hooda’s Swatantrya Veer Savarkar. She is co-starring with Randeep in the historical drama. During a recent interview with India Today, Ankita was joined by her good friend and producer Sandeep Ssingh. Sandeep shared how Ankita came to his aid during a challenging period in his career. (Also Read: Trailer for Swatantrya Veer Savarkar: Randeep Hooda’s film explores the clash between non-violent and violent ideologies of the controversial leader)
Ankita Lokhande did not request any payment for Swatantra Veer Savarkar
Sandeep in his latest interview said, “When I was working with Mr Bhansali as a CEO and I was co-producing Ram-Leela, Bajirao Mastani, Mary Kom, Gabbar is Back and Rowdy Rathod, since that time I had a friend called Ankita who believed in me. In fact, she and Kangana were among the first people who told me that ‘you should be the director.’ She (Ankita) said that ‘Sandeep jab tum film banana to main hi acting karungi (whenever you make a movie, I’ll act in it)’. When I made Safed, I approached her but she couldn’t do the film. But whenever I was shooting, we were in touch.”
He further detailed the circumstances in which Ankita signed the film. Talking about their conversation, he said: “At the time I got Savarkar, nobody wanted to work with me because I had gone through a lot of media trial. I never told her that nobody wants to work with me. I wanted her to play Yamunabai in Savarkar. She said ‘I have one condition that I am not going to charge for this film. I can never charge any money from you for any role’. I said then you are in all my films.”
The film Swatantra Veer Savarkar, co-directed, co-written and co-produced by Randeep, is also supported by Sandeep, Anand Pandit, Zee Studios and Yogesh Rahar. The cast includes Amit Sial, Rajesh Khera, Lokesh Mittal, Brajesh Jha, Santosh Ojha, Rahul Kulkarni, Mrinal Dutt, Sanjay Sharma, Sal Uusuf and others in important roles. This period drama was released on March 22 in both Hindi and Marathi languages.
