Rajkumar Hirani Debunks Film With Ranbir Kapoor Post Sanju: 'Not Making Anything With Him' I Exclusive

Rajkumar Hirani is gearing up for the release of Pritam And Pedro, which marks his streaming debut and the screen debut of his son, Vir Hirani. As per reports, up next for the filmmaker is a film based on an athlete starring Ranbir Kapoor. Some other reports have further suggested that it has been postponed to 2027 due to scheduling conflicts, with the script still being in development.

Speaking exclusively to News18, Rajkumar finally addresses the speculations and states, “No, I’m not making anything with Ranbir at the moment. But I would love to work with him again. I did read reports that we’re doing a film. Many a times, I look at newspapers and come to know of the films I’m making, which makes me wonder ki abb yeh kahan se aaya (laughs)!”

Rajkumar and Ranbir had earlier worked on Sanju, a biopic on Sanjay Dutt. The director’s apparently focused on a biopic on Dadasaheb Phalke with Aamir Khan at present. The sequel of 3 Idiots and Munna Bhai 3 are also in the works, he confirms. “It’s all in the writing stage at the moment. Both the films will happen. But it all depends on when the scripts are ready,” he tells us.

As for Pritam And Pedro, it features his frequent collaborators such as Arshad Warsi, Boman Irani and Mona Singh. While Arshad quips that ‘Raju Hirani’s name’ is enough to make them say yes, Rajkumar feels otherwise. “No, it’s nothing like that. Arshad’s just being generous. It doesn’t work like that. You obviously want to figure out who’s the best person for a particular role and then you talk to them,” he states.

“I don’t take it for granted that the person will say yes to it. They need to hear the story, like it and feel that there’s something in it they can contribute. When we wrote Pritam And Pedro, Arshad felt like the right fit. We’ve seen him as a cop in Sehar. I’ve known him for a long time. People sometimes feel he’s only good at doing comedies. But I know how good he’s at doing serious stuff too,” he adds.

A lot of time goes into casting for the smaller parts too. “You take your time to cast actors. It’s not that simple. Sometimes, if you aren’t sure, people also audition and go through the whole journey because you don’t need to just ace the main characters. There are so many other characters too,” remarks the Dunki and PK director.

“All of Raju’s films have that specialty that all the characters are well-defined and good at what they do and so, they’re remembered. In Pritam And Pedro too, you’ll remember the smallest of the characters – even those that probably come for a scene or two or have only a few lines – because they’ll really leave a mark and you’ll fall in love with them,” Arshad chimes in.

Pritam And Pedro is all set to premiere on JioHotstar on July 3.