Set out to make Dawood biopic instead made Haseena Parkar, reveals Apoorva Lakhia

As the release date of Apoorva Lakhia's Haseena Parkar nears, the buzz about the film grows stronger. The film has Shraddha Kapoor take on the challenging mantle of Haseena Parkar, sister of the dreaded criminal, Dawood Ibrahim, and the woman who ran the city of Mumbai in his absence. However, if the director is to be believed the choice of Haseena as the central protagonist of his film was never a part of the initial plan.

In a candid chat, Lakhia revealed, "I was actually approached to make a film on Dawood, which I refused as there have been so many films based on him. But the makers told me that people don’t know much about Dawood’s younger days and this intrigued me so I agreed to meet his family members to get to know more about him."

It was during this interaction that Lakhia's attention was captured by the personality of Haseena Parkar. He says, "Haseena was this innocent girl from a crime family and what she went through because of her family background fascinated me a lot and I proposed that we make a film on her instead. Though she was initially reluctant, we finally managed to persuade her to share her story with us and the rest is history."

The film has already garnered attention for Kapoor's metamorphosis into the paan-chewing rough timbred Haseena. The film, produced by Nahid Khan (Swiss Entertainment) and co-produced by Sameer Antulay and Babu Tyagi, also stars Siddhanth Kapoor and Ankur Bhatia.

The film is set to be released on 22 September.