Daily Times

Amrita Rao has revealed that she was initially offered a role in Salman Khan’s 2000 film Wanted but could not make it to the final contract as her own manager intentionaly hid the information from her. In her book Couple of Things, Amrita recalled having parted ways with her manager just a few months before she realised that she was approached for the Salman Khan film. “A few months later, I was in Hyderabad shooting for a Telugu film with south superstar Mahesh Babu. One evening, back from the shoot in the lobby of my hotel Taj Banjara, I bumped into a production guy who worked closely with Mr. Boney Kapoor. ‘Oh, hi Amrita! How are you doing? If only our dates hadn’t clashed, you would be shooting for us with Salman Khan for Wanted,’ he said. I looked at him blankly. ‘When was 1 approached for Wanted?’ I asked, confused.” She then quoted the person as saying, “Oh of course you were, I had called your manager and he said your dates were impossible to match.”

Amrita added in her book, “My heart broke into pieces and I was completely shattered. ‘I was never informed by him about such a huge offer, if only I knew, I’d have definitely worked out the dates for you,’ I said, reeling from the shock! Instead of taking our separation in his stride, my ex-manager had decided to give me this vengeful parting gift!” Directed by Prabhu Dheva, Wanted was the Hindi remake of Puri Jagannadh’s 2006 Telugu film Pokiri. It featured Ayesha Takia opposite Salman and also starred Vinod Khanna, Prakash Raj, Inder Kumar and Mahesh Manjrekar. The film emerged as a box office hit, became one of the top grossers of 2009 and reinstated Salman as a bankable film star.

Last month, actor-couple Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh launched Amrita Rao and RJ Anmol’s book Couple of Things. Amrita and Anmol have co-written the book.

Having made her debut in Bollywood in 2002 with Ab Ke Baras, Amrita went on to feature in films such as Ishq Vishk, Main Hoon Na and Vivaah. Most recently, she starred in the biographical film Thackeray that featured Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Shiv Sena founder Balasaheb Thackeray.