There’s no doubt that this thriller still stands out as one of the finest movies that have come out in the past few decades. Even after thirteen years since its release, this movie still has a special place in our hearts.
With a star-cast of extremely fine actors, there are certain facts about this movie that are quite surprising. Let’s see them, shall we?
1. Anupam Kher, who portrayed the character of Mumbai Police Commissioner in the movie, was inspired by real-life police officer Rakesh Maria. He grabbed headlines after he investigated and cracked the serial blasts case in 1993.
2. Didn’t we all love Naseeruddin Shah’s common man character in the movie? However, he wasn’t the first choice for that role. That’s right. The role was first offered to Nana Patekar but he lost out on the movie because of his short temper.
3. It turns out that even Anupam Kher wasn’t the first choice for portraying the character of the main cop. The gripping role was first offered to Naseeruddin Shah. In an interview with Bollywood Hungama, the actor revealed that he was first offered Anupam Kher’s role in the movie. However, something didn’t work out and he played his iconic character of a common man.
4. Naseeruddin Shah, who plays the role of a common man in the movie, had no character name throughout the entire movie. Even in the ending credits, he is referred to as the common man.
5. Remember the under-construction building where Naseeruddin Shah had set up his workstation? Well, it was actually a half-done 25-storey building which was picked from 50 other buildings as it had a clear view of the city’s skyline. Since the building had no elevators and proper stairs, the team planned to install a trolley lift. However, Naseeruddin Shah declined the offer and used to climb up 25 floors every single day.
7. We often see a number of Bollywood movies that are inspired by the Hollywood or South Indian movie industry. However, this was one of the movies that inspired all the other cinema industries to churn out its remake. In 2013, Sri Lanka released a remake of this movie titled A Common Man starring Ben Kingsley and Ben Cross in the lead roles. In 2009, this movie was also remade by Tamil and Telugu industries with the movie names Unnaipol Oruvan and Eeenadu respectively.
8. Neeraj Pandey, who directed several superhit movies like MS Dhoni: The Untold Story and Special 26, made his directorial debut with this movie. He was even awarded Indira Gandhi Award for The Best Debut Film Of A Director at 56th National Film Awards.
9. During an interview, Naseeruddin Shah revealed that this was the first-ever movie of his career where he didn’t change a single word in the script of the movie. He mentioned that he believes that an actor’s output in a movie totally depends on the quality of the writing and in that sense, this particular movie speaks for itself. And, we couldn’t agree more.
10. Although the movie is a work of fiction, the storyline of the movie is inspired by the spine-chilling train bombings that occurred on July 11th 2006 in Mumbai. Even the incidents that followed the bombings were used in the plotline of this movie as details.