Rajkumar Hirani slams reports of whitewashing Sanjay Dutt’s image with Ranbir Kapoor led Sanju, says, “What is your problem?”

Sanjay Dutt’s controversial life is known to all and it was explored in-depth in Rajkumar Hirani directed Sanju. The movie starring Ranbir Kapoor is one of the highest grossing movies. However, when it released in 2018, there was a lot of chatter around the instances in the film. Reports were also rife that Rajkumar Hirani made the film to whitewash Sanjay Dutt’s image. In a recent interview, he has now broken silence on such claims.

Rajkumar Hirani on bond with Sanjay Dutt

Speaking about making Sanju in detail, Rajkummar Hirani told Komal Nahta on his YouTube channel Game Changers. He said, “I got inspiration for Sanju after hearing Sanjay Dutt’s stories from himself. Sanjay was out on parole. He came out and called me. He said, ‘What you upto? Please come meet me.’ I went there to meet him. This was the phase when he was very much alone and not a lot of people would visit him. Despite having done two films with him, I was not close friends with him. Our relation was limited to work. But this one day, I felt like he was venting out to me. He started to share his stories, began to talk about his father. This was it and I went back home.”

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Over the next few days, Dutt continued reaching out, and that’s when Hirani saw the potential for a film. “It hit me that all of his stories are extremely amazing. Maybe there is a film.” The filmmaker shared at this time there was no discussions about making Sanju. “At that time, we were writing Munna Bhai, Sanju was a ready-made material that we received out of the blue.”

Rajkumar Hirani on whitewashing Sanjay Dutt’s image with Sanju

Rajkumar Hirani also recalled, “During an interview once, I was asked if I made Sanju to whitewash Sanjay Dutt’s image. I was like, ‘What is your problem with him?’ He said, ‘He kept the gun with him’. I was like, ‘So, we have shown him keeping the gun. We even showed how he called his friend to throw it in the water and destroy it. We also showed he was a drug addict.” He added, “We even showed he slept with his best friend’s girlfriend. We also showed he was a brat. What is that you think I have not shown to whitewash his image? People developed a perception based on what they have read about him around. Nobody knows him first hand.’”

He said, “I am not an out-of-work director to be so desperate to make a film to whitewash someone’s image. Neither was I that close friends with him. I was just greedy about the story. It wasn’t like I just heard his side of the story, but I also spoke to his friends and family.”

He also shared, “There was a whole perception that there was a truck full of RDX at his home. This too came from a news item. Many in the industry talked to me against the film. ‘Why you doing this?’ There was no truth to this. There was no record of him having a truck like that. I read entire High Court and Supreme Court judgement. Nothing was mentioned. Even Sanjay said he never had such charges against him. Because it was interesting, I made it. However, after I made this film, I received several phone calls to make films on them to clear their names.”

Talking about Sanju, it also starred Vicky Kaushal, Sonam Kapoor, Manisha Koirala, Paresh Rawal, Dia Mirza.

Also Read: Sanjay Dutt to reunite with Mahesh Manjrekar for Vaastav 2? Here’s what we know