Ranvijay in Vipul Shah's Action Replay

Ranvijay Singh who's a popular VJ on MTV has bagged a role in Action Replay that was originally played by director Vipul Shah in the stage version of the film 15 years ago. And Vipul seems to be reliving his own golden moments as an actor through Ranvijay, as the director now abandons his acting cap and passes it over to a VJ who is new to acting.

Says Vipul, ''It's a very strange feeling. I remember I had stepped into the part of the heroine's best friend when no other actor agreed to accept the role. I was a novice in theatre and no one wanted to work with me. Now I've got Ranvijay to do my role and I find myself trying very hard not to recall my own acting stint.''

Apparently, Vipul often finds Ranvijay copying his style of walking and talking. Says the director, ''I've made sure no one watched the play. How could they anyway? It came fifteen years ago. But I've retained the dramatic flavour of the drama.''

Action Replay goes into two time zones, 1975 and the current times. The actors have to make the 30-year time switch without prosthetics. Says Vipul, ''If I can take my character from the way I played it 15 years ago to the way Ranvijay interprets it, I can also make the characters undergo the transition without external props.''