Neil Mukesh, Rishi Kapoor, Hema Malini reunite after 21 years

MUMBAI - Neil Nitin Mukesh was seen as a child actor in the 1988 film “Vijay”, which also featured Rishi Kapoor and Hema Malini. The trio is now set to come together after 21 long years for Ken Ghosh’s new film.

“Now isn’t that a once in a lifetime coincidence?” Ghosh exclaimed. “For me, getting Neil Nitin Mukesh, Rishi Kapoor and Hema Malini to star in the film was good enough and now this fact being highlighted has only proven to be the icing on the cake,” the director told IANS.

In “Vijay”, each of the three actors had a rather strange screen appearance and they hardly shared screen space. While Neil played Hema Malini’s little son, Rishi went on to play his grown up version. This made Hema Malini Rishi Kapoor’s on-screen mom.

“Well, Rishi Kapoor and Hema Malini are pretty much paired opposite each other in my film. While they represent the older generation, Neil would play a contemporary character. And, yes, unlike ‘Vijay’ where the script didn’t allow the three of them to share screen space together, there would be ample scenes between them here,” Ghosh said.

As a child actor, Neil has played not just a young Rishi but also a young Govinda in “Jaisi Karni Waisi Bharni” in 1989.

On the other hand, Rishi and Hema Malini have worked together, the most notable being “Ek Chaadar Maili Si” (1986).

But apart from Ken Ghosh’ yet untitled movie, the two will also share screen space in Raj Kanwar’s “Sadiyaan”.

Coming back to Neil’s film, apart from the three principal characters, the rest of the cast is yet to be finalised.

“We are looking at an ensemble casting so there could be quite a few names that you would hear soon,” said Ghosh, who has earlier made movies like “Ishq Vishk” and “Fida”.

“Chance Pe Dance”, Ghosh’s forthcoming film starring Shahid Kapoor and Genelia D’Souza, is set to release in November, but there were many rumours regarding its title. So will there be any confusion over the movie’s name this time around?

“Unlike ‘Chance Pe Dance’ where titles like ‘Star’, ‘Yahoo’ and many more were floating all around in the last one year, we have something locked pretty much in advance. We were very clear that this time around, we didn’t want any ambiguity or speculation around what the film would be called. You will soon hear an announcement about it,” the director said.