Amitabh Bachchan may star with Crowe, DiCaprio

7 July, 2007

BY OUR CELEBRITY REPORTER

Big B with Leonardo Di Caprio and Russel Crowe? It is very likely that this dream combination, for some, may come together for director Ridley Scott’s next venture.

Ridley Scott’s ambitious project, Body of Lies, which is a thriller with an Al-Qaeda plot, might have Amitabh Bachchan playing the role of a Jordanian in the film. Bachchan has asked for the script before deciding on the role. Body of Lies has been authored by William Monahan, who wrote The Departed.

Even though Bachchan has yet to confirm if he will act in the film that will have Leonardo Di Caprio and Russel Crowe in major roles, the media is going gaga about the Indian actor’s new Hollywood role. The buzz is that the man behind masterpieces like Gladiator and Matchstick Men is really keen to direct Bachchan.

Scott and Bachchan first met in 2003 at the Marrakech Film Festival in Rabat, Morocco where Scott offered Bachchan a role in the 2005 spectacle Kingdom of Heaven. Though Bachchan didn’t take up the part, things look brighter this time round. Body of Lies has Crowe playing a CIA boss who teams up with DiCaprio as an operative trying to trap an Al-Qaeda leader.

According to a report, the movie’s producers have been desperate to cast Crowe for months, and although he is on board, he wants to read “a polished rewrite” before committing to a contract.

Meanwhile, Bachchan will be seen on another Hollywood venture soon. He will act along side Johnny Depp in Mira Nair’s screen adaptation of the Gregory David Robert’s novel Shantaram.

He will also be seen in Rituparno Ghosh’s The Last Lear, where he plays an aging theatre actor in the Calcutta of the late 40’s. The story revolves round the character whose greatest desire is to play Lear, but cannot fulfill it. He then is asked to play a clown in the circus. And due to some circumstances he has to take it up.

But, will Bachchan take up a role, even if it's in a Hollywood flick, where he doesn't have a lead role? Looks tough, unless Bachchan accepts that he is not likely to get lead roles in Hollywood productions.