Varun Dhawan Was Gascony To Play Harshad Mehta For Paresh Rawal’s Production Film On Harshad Mehta

It Finally Went To Applause Entertainment & Hansal Mehta.

1990s superstar-scamster Harshad Mehta is  now once again  a household name, thanks to HansalMehta’s series.

And to think  Varun Dhawan  was all set   to  play  Harshad Mehta  in a film to be produced  by Paresh Rawal!Reliable sources say, Varun was  all but locked in to play Harshad Mehta by Paresh  . But the script for the  bio-pic was  stuck. They finally had to scrap the idea.

This is when Sameer Nair  and Applause Entertainment stepped in and acquired the  rights to make  a  webseries on Harshad Mehta.An unknown Gujarati  actor  was roped in to play HarshadMehta. Pratik  Gandhi is now  a household name.

Says Harshad Mehta, “I’m  aware that Harshad Mehta’s story has had long journey to the screen. Hota hai. Every  story has its own destiny. I had to face a lot  of resistance  while casting  PratikGandhi. Many big names were  suggested. But I wanted  Pratik. Then I was  advised to  do some  padding in  the casting. But I refused to cast  known faces even in  supporting roles. I now feel one of  the  reasons why  Scam worked so well was the  relatively unknown faces  on screen. They all looked like the characters  they were playing.”

Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story is currently the highest rated show on IMDB in India (9.6) and #16 amongst the top 50 television shows globally. With phenomenal ratings and record-breaking performance, the show has made it to the list of the top 5 OTT shows for the last week of October, according to a streaming tracker by Ormax Media. Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story is the second on the list with 6.6 million views. 

The show has received a remarkable response from audiences for its gripping performances from Pratik Gandhi and Shreya Dhanwanthary, stellar direction by Hansal Mehta and an exceptional script from Sumit Purohit, Saurav Dey, Vaibhav Vishal and Karan Vyas.

Adds Sameer Nair  CEO of Applause Entertainment, “Scam is a special show and I am thrilled it received so much appreciation and applause from critics and audiences alike. Being India’s first financial drama based on true life personalities, it was from the start a ‘risky’ idea but as Harshadrepeatedly says in the show “Risk hai toh Ishq hai”. Everything came together magically, right from the screen adaptation of the original source material to the casting choices to the dialogues, production design, music, performances, direction, marketing to the final product.It was great team effort with Hansal Mehta as the captain of the ship holding everything together brilliantly.”