Ajay to star opposite Shahzahn Padmasee

In the film Dil Toh Bachcha Hai Ji, actress Shazahn Padamsee plays the nice sweet Catholic girl who works in Ajay Devgn's company. Soon the 40-year old character begins to get attracted to the 20-year old girl. Initially, Shazahn whose last co-star was Ranbir Kapoor was intimidated by the thought of working with an actor so much her senior. But Madhur convinced her about the relevance of the age-group in the script.

Says Shahzahn, "Initially I was nervous. But I knew I was going to be taken care of. Madhur Bhandarkar is one of the best directors ever. Look at the kind of magic he works with his heroines. When I saw Chandni Bar I was blown. It's the best Hindi film I've seen."

The other impediment in Shazahn'a way was that her role requires a lot of dancing. Luckily, Shazahn is equipped to handle that. "After Rocket Singh, I went down South to do two films one in Tamil, the other in Telugu. Both required a lot of Bollywood-styled dancing. So I can manage the movements well now."

Again managing them with an actor who is twice her age could be problematic. Shazahn is willing to put in long ours to get her steps with Devgn right. It's interesting how Shazahn bagged a role that had several short-listed finalists including the producer Kumar Mangat's daughter Amita.

Madhur Bhandarkar was on the look-out for a very young relatively-unrecognized girl to play out the older-man-young-girl romance. He spotted Shazahn at the premiere of Raajneeti. And immediately knew she was the one he was looking for. Not knowing about the stress between Raajneeti director and Devgn, Bhandarkar quickly looked around at the premiere for Devgn to seek his approval for the actress.

Says a source, "Bhandarkar was shocked to know that Devgn was not coming for the Raajneeti premiere. He had to find another opportunity to introduce Shazahn to Devgn."