Taha Shah held Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s hand and pleaded with him to not be fired, asked for forgiveness: ‘Sir, don’t take me out of this role’

Actor Taha Shah Badussha, who rose to fame after playing the tragic character Tajdar in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar, spoke about the intense audition process that he went through to bag the role. Taha said that he was initially desperate to get any kind of part on the show, and was then upgraded to the role of Tajdar’s best friend. But Bhansali saw something in his eyes, and asked him to test for the role of Tajdar instead. Taha said in an interview that when he was told he wasn’t going to play the best friend character, he started pleading with Bhansali to reconsider, as he had no idea that the filmmaker had bigger things in mind.

Asked about his tumultuous audition process, Taha said in an interview with the Urban Asian YouTube channel, “I actually signed on for a three-day role. And that, too, I was chasing the audition for 15 months. My friend and I, we literally begged and pleaded the casting agent to consider us for any role, really.” Taha said that he had ‘nothing going’ for himself, so he decided to do the small part with the hope that he makes an impression on Bhansali and gets called for a future project.

Also read – Taha Shah Badussha says he skipped meals at Cannes to focus on networking; recalls bribing watchmen with juice to get meeting with filmmakers

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But fate had something different in store for him. Three weeks later, he was called to meet Bhansali, who observed that nobody knows him even though he’s been working for a decade. Bhansali said that he should play Tajdar’s friend Balraj instead. “Two weeks later, when I was on my way to sign the contract, I get a call saying, ‘We’re really sorry, but sir has decided to go another way with you, and you might not be getting this role’.” Taha was gutted. Upon reaching Bhansali’s office, he didn’t wait for the filmmaker to speak, and started pleading with him to reconsider. “I basically just held his hand and started pleading with him, and saying, ‘Sir, please don’t take me out of this role, it means the world to me. It’s the biggest opportunity of my life, if I did something wrong, forgive me’.” Bhansali then told him to sit down and take a breath, and try for Tajdar instead.

Taha said that before he was finalised for the role of Tajdar, he waited weeks for any sort of good news. He started calling up the casting director Shruti Mahajan, who began to get ‘annoyed’ by his incessant requests for information. She told him that she couldn’t give him any updates until Bhansali tells her what he wants to do. Taha didn’t want to lose out on the supporting roles that he was originally vying for in the process, and told Shruti that he’s okay with not getting the Tajdar role, and would be happy to play a supporting character instead. “I was dying,” he said. “During that month, I was offered three other projects. There was one international project and two domestic projects… I was getting good money for them, and I had to run my house, but I kept stalling.”

Read more – Heeramandi’s Taha Shah Badussha reveals how Sanjay Leela Bhansali tested him: ‘He didn’t speak to me for 2 days, watched as his assistant…’

Some months later, the producers of these three projects told him to stop playing games and back out if he was so uncertain. “And with a heavy heart, I said no to all three of those projects,” Taha said. “Luckily, three days later, I got a call saying that sir wants to meet you, come to set.” And that’s when Bhansali told him that he’d been cast as Tajdar. “The pressure, the stress… It was unbelievable,” he said.

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In a recent interview, Shruti Mahajan also spoke about the process of casting Taha as Tajdar. She told Bollywood Life, “Taha was cast through multiple rounds of auditions. And Taha being Taha, he kept calling me saying he wanted to be a part of Heeramandi, he was in touch with me for a long while. Initially, I asked Taha if he would like to audition for a character part and he said, ‘Aap mera audition lekar Mr Bhansali ko dikha do bas (You just take my audition and show it to Mr Bhansali)’. I called him up and told him that the character role was not working for him, and he, being full of drama, started saying how he has struggled for years and now he is not even getting a part like this. ‘Mera luck hi kharab he,’ he mentioned. Then I told him that there was another part if he would like to audition for. We had multiple rounds of auditions and look tests for Tajdar and the rest is history.”