Raveena Tandon Reveals Why Ram Gopal Varma Was Apprehensive About Casting Her In Shool

Raveena Tandon has given many memorable performances in her career. One of them is Eeshwar Nivas' critically acclaimed film Shool which also starred Manoj Bajpayee. The 1999 film had bagged the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi and won Raveena some rave reviews for her portrayal of Manjari, a lower middle class housewife from Bihar.

Recently when the actress made an appearance on the Actors' Roundtable 2021 with Rajeev Masand, she revealed that while the film's director E Niwas was absolutely convinced about casting her in the film, producer Ram Gopal Varma was apprehensive about it because of her glamorous image.

Raveena told Rajeev, "He kept on saying, "No yaar Raveena. I shut my eyes and I can only see you do Ankhiyon Se Goli Mare. How will we do this?"

Nevertheless, the actress went on to do the the banner shoot, poster shoot, publicity shoot before the film went on floors. Raveena shared, "We are still shooting stills for Rakesh Shrestha. I get out of my make-up room and am walking through the corridor in that Manjari bhabhi look. Ramu (RGV) is coming from the front and I look at him and say, 'Ramu, hi, how are you doing? We are waiting for you, we have already started.' And he nodded. Suddenly after 5-7 minutes I hear, 'oh my god, Raveena! That was you', and I rested my case."

Besides bankrolling Shool, Ram Gopal Varma had also penned the film. The movie revolves around Samar (Manoj Bajpayee), an honest cop who must deal with a brutal and lawless system created by a corrupt politician Bachchu Yadav. Besides the impressive story-telling and performances, Shool is also remembered for Shilpa Shetty's iconic dance song 'Main Aayi Hoon U.P. Bihar Lootne'.

Coming back to Raveena Tandon, the actress recently made her digital debut with the Netflix web series Aranyak.