Amrita clears 'kiss controversy' with Ranbir

Sometime back, Amrita Rao was being considered for a pivotal role in Yashraj"s new film, to be directed by Siddharth Raj Anand and starring Ranbir Kapoor in the lead. The reason, as cited in the media, was Amrita"s refusal to indulge in a passionate kiss with Ranbir [on screen, of course]. Resultantly, Amrita decided to make an exit from the film.

Amrita had been maintaining a silence about the entire episode, but she decided to clear the air when this writer questioned her about this raging controversy. “I opted out because I had reservations about certain things. Kissing was never an issue. I really don"t understand how this issue [kiss] cropped up in the first place, when the fact is that the issue was something else altogether," Amrita divulges.

So how did the Chopras take to Amrita"s refusal? “Adi [Aditya Chopra] understood my point of view. He wasn"t upset, nor did he throw a fit. He assured me that we"d work again, in the future," she states.

While on Amrita, although she didn"t have a Hindi release in 2007 [except for the Telugu blockbuster Athidi], Amrita will have four releases in 2008, starting with E. Niwas" My Name is Anthony Gonsalves [opp. new-find Nikhil], Shyam Benegal"s film [opp. Shreyas Talpade], Neeraj Vora"s Shortcut [opp. Akshaye Khanna and Arshad Warsi] and Victory [opp. Harman Baweja].

Ranbir Kapoor in Saawariya