Dhanush, Sonam to play 17-year olds in Raanjhanaa

29-year old Tamil superstar Dhanush and Sonam Kapoor, who is 26, would be playing 17-year olds in an important segment of Aanand Kumar’s love story Raanjhanaa. It was earlier planned to cast two teenagers as the younger versions of Sonam and Dhanush’s career. But, the hunt for the right face and body language proved futile. Says a source, “Aanand wanted to cast two young actors who would be convincing as younger avatars of Dhanush and Sonam, but getting the same facial features and correct body language turned out to be a daunting task. It was then that Dhanush and Sonam suggested they try to portray their younger versions themselves.” And now the lead pair of Raanjhanaa are all set to knock off a decade from their respective ages for the camera. Both Sonam and Dhanush have been on a special diet to get the teens back into their lives. When contacted, director Aanand Rai said, “It’s all about conviction of characterization. The actors have to believe in what they’re doing. The physicality follows from the actors’ ability to portray younger versions of themselves. I believe Sonam and Dhanush are so submerged in their characters, that they can move through the chronology from inside. When they play 17-year olds, no one would be looking at the two actors’ real ages.” A tougher challenge was to get the Varanasi accent right. In fact, one of the reasons the film’s shooting has been delayed is that Sonam needed to get her anglicized accent out of the way and Dhanush needed to work on eliminating the Tamil twang from his Hindi acsent. Says the director, “As far as I’m concerned, the language was never a problem. I could’ve shot the whole film in Tamil and the characters and content would have remained the same.” Raanjhanaa begins shooting on the ghats of Varanasi on 1st September. The security arrangement would be minimal since the two actors would be comparatively unrecognizable.