Sonya replaces Aishwarya in Crooked!

“For Abhishek and Ash, the whole charm of doing another film together was to not be together. Crooked was supposed to cast them not as a pair, but in different segments,” says a very reliable source. Abhishek’s co-star in this film, directed by Abhinay Deo, is former Miss India Sarah Jane Dias.

As for Aishwarya, far from being Abhishek’s romantic interest, she was supposed to play his adversary. It was a role similar to what Kareena Kapoor will play in Sriram Raghavan’s Agent Vinod opposite Saif Ali Khan.

Crooked has four major leading ladies. Besides Sarah, there are Shahana Goswami (who shot to fame with the same banner’s Rock On!! last year), Gul Panag and pretty Pakistani actor Sonya Jehan.

The meaty and mysterious part of a cop on the trail of global criminals in this whodunit - which Aishwarya was to play - has gone to Sonya. She made her debut as Mumtaz Mahal in Akbar Khan’s Taj Mahal and was last seen as a 1950s actress modelled on her legendary grandmother Noor Jehan in Sudhir Mishra’s Khoya Khoya Chand. Sonya also has a role in Karan Johar’s My Name Is Khan.

Though Aishwarya and Sonya are worlds apart, according to a source it was the ‘fair complexion, light eyes and a certain air of hateur’ that clinched it for Sonya.

Producer Ritesh Sidhwani also confirmed that Sonya is part of the new cast. “But I can’t reveal what she’s playing. She’s tremendously beautiful and talented and suited the part she has been chosen for. We won’t call the film Crooked, though. That was the working title. And we’re looking for a new title urgently before the working title sticks.”