Written for Kangana, Irrfan, Divine Lovers comes out as Tiku Weds Sheru with Avneet Kaur, Nawazuddin Siddiqui – Beyond Bollywood

Actor, producer Kangana Ranaut goes down memory lane, heaps praise on young Avneet Kaur for having the emotional potency to play the layered character of Tiku.

By Mayur Lookhar

A Kangana Ranaut press conference. Surely, one anticipated venom, fireworks. Jeez, she gives headlines. After all, what else does a journalist worth his/her salt want? But this is a film that will stream on a premier OTT network. Argh, OTT press conferences are boring and all about vanity. 

We didn’t get the controversial headlines, but Kangana took us down memory lane. Here was a mellow, nostalgic Kangana Ranaut on the stage. The actor-producer reminded all that this film Tiku Weds Sheru [2023] actually has a history to it.

“(Late) Irrfan Khan and I were to do this film,” said Ranaut immediately grabbing everyone’s attention. She then narrated the whole story.

“Six-seven years ago, we had announced this film. We had a big launch. It was then named Divine Lovers. Unfortunately, my director Sai Kabir fell ill.  He couldn’t make it in the next 3-4 years, so it was canned,” rued Ranaut.

Sai Kabir Shrivastav had penned, helmed the disaster Revolver Rani [2014] that starred who else but. In 2018, it was reported that he went under rehab after suffering from depression, drug abuse.  He was out of action for many years. When he regained good health, unfortunately, another tragedy struck Divine Lovers as the great Irrfan Khan passed away at the age of 53 in 2020. It was another hammer blow to Divine Lovers and left Ranaut demotivated.

Finally, when Sai and Kangana were ready to reignite their Divine Lovers dream, there was a more pressing matter at hand.  

“The other problem was that we wanted a Kangana that was ten years younger. The Kangana who had dreams of big city in her eyes. The Kangana, who was hoping to be part of Bollywood. I told Kabir that this wasn’t going to work now,” said the Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi [2019] actor.

As they say, destiny has its own ways to set things in motion. While Kangana had surpassed the character age, she felt motivated to produce this film on her own. Divine Lovers was renamed as Tiku Weds Sheru.  We assume there must be some changes to the plot too.  Nawazuddin Siddiqui stepped in for the late Irrfan, while Ranaut, Sai Kabir picked a young, precocious talent in Avneet Kaur to play the lead. 21 now, Kaur has been in the entertainment space doing few TV shows. We spotted her in the long due film Chidiakhana [2023] where she was still a teen. That film was made five years ago, but one look at Kaur suggested that there is talent in the pretty, young lady.

What is it though that tilted the scales in Kaur’s favour?

“This [Tiku] is such a challenging role. We never thought of newcomers. Honestly, I needed a very strong actor. I recalled how I played a matured role in Gangster [2006]. So, I decided to launch a new girl. At the same time, we were disappointed as we didn’t find the caliber that we needed. We wanted the innocence of a small-town girl,” said Kangana.

After an initial perhaps local hunt, Ranaut didn’t have great hopes of finding her Tiku. She suggested a radical idea to ace casting director Mukesh Chhabra.

“I spoke to [casting director] Mukesh Chhabra and pressed the need to have an office in Himachal Pradesh, Haryana to hunt for this character,’ said a smiling Ranaut.

She adds, “We were about to do it. Then Ajay Dhama, a friend, sent me her [Avneet Kaur] Instagram link. The minute I saw her, I had a feeling that she could play it. We hadn’t auditioned her but she was absolutely raw, unassuming. I met her, did some exercises with her and I was confident that she could do it.”

Ranaut paid glowing tribute to the talent of young Miss Kaur.

She says, “I was taken aback by her spontaneity and her understanding of human emotions, which are layered, very deep. For a young girl, Avneet had the emotional stamina to touch those notes, to dive into those depths. I thought of her as a young chirpy girl, and maybe we will have to work hard with her for the emotional scenes.  We were shocked to see her emotional potency.”

Ranaut felt happy for Kaur to get this amazing break at such an early age in her career. She drew parallels with her own beginning.

“After Gangster [2006], I got more and more difficult roles. This will happen to you [Avneet] as well now,” proclaimed the feisty now senior artiste.

Kaur was speechless. She simply said that this was an emotional moment for her to be playing a lead in a Kangana Ranaut production and sharing screen space with Nawazuddin Siddiqui. We liked her confidence in Chidiakhana, and it looks like Tiku is another ambitious, confident lass.

Tiku Weds Sheru [2023] is set to be released on Amazon Prime Video on 23 June. Watch the trailer below.