Prosenjit Chatterjee to Rituparna Sengupta: 10 Crazy facts about these Bengali celebs you probably didn’t know

You may know a whole lot of trivia about your favourite Bengali stars, but there are a number of juicy tit-bits which never get published in papers! Be it Prosenjit Chatterjee’s Bollywood rejection or Rituparna Sengupta working in Hema Malini directed film; there are many unknown facts about the film stars which you are not aware of. Take a look at these 10 strange facts we bet you didn’t know about the Tollywood celebs.

Rituparna worked in a telefilm titled ‘Mohini’, which was directed by none other than the dream girl, Hema Malini. Rituparna was cast in a negative supporting role. Mohini is not just a film about supernatural phenomenon; it mostly deals with the natural events and natural accidents which may happen any day. How will you react when the handsome guy next door u liked encounters with a terrible accident and burns his face? How will you react if someone tells you that your love interest is not human? This film deals with all these possible accidents and their natural disastrous effects.

Jisshu made his debut in Bollywood through Shyam Benegal’s 2005 film Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero. The popular Bengali actor was cast as Sisir Bose, Netaji’s nephew. Since then he has appeared in many Bollywood hits such as Barfi, Mardaani, Piku. His next big thing in Bollywood is the upcoming historical drama Manikarnika starring Kangana Ranaut. The dashing Bengal actor will be seen as Rani Laxmibai’s husband Maharaja Gangadhar Rao Newalkar.

From the very beginning of her career, Raima Sen worked in so many hit movies directed by Rituporno Ghosh, Koushik Ganguly, Kamaleswar Mukherjee, Zoya Akhtar and others. But, it not ends here. She has even co-produced a movie with his co-star and close friend Parambrata Chatterjee and director Suman Ghosh titled 'Mi Amor'. It’s the first Bengali film to be entirely shot in Miami and also the first to release exclusively online.

Despite his superb acting talent, a young Soumitra at the age of 20 was rejected in his screen test for the titular role of a 1957 Bengali film named ‘Nilachale Mahaprabhu’ directed by Kartik Chattopadhyay. The film was a biopic based on the life of 15th-century mystic Chaitanya Mahaprabhu who started his spiritual journey and Hindu reform movement during his years at Nilachal at Puri. Asim Kumar played the titular role.

Subhashree made her film debut in the Oriya industry with 2008 film Mate Ta Love Helare. Touted to be a loose remake of Telugu film Student No. 1, it was an action comedy directed by Ashok Pati. Her flawless natural acting quickly caught the eye of many Bengali filmmakers and producers and rest is history. She is right now one of the highly sought-after actors in Tollywood.

Every Kangana Ranaut fan knows that the sizzling beauty made her Bollywood debut with ‘Gangster’. For this crime thriller, she even won the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut. But how many of you know Kangana was not the first choice? Initially, Koel Mallick was approached for Gangster. However, the Bong beauty felt uncomfortable with the intimate scenes and rejected the offer.

One of his finest works, ‘Kanchenjunga’ (1962) is the first coloured Bengali film and is also regarded as the first Indian anthology film. People who are familiar with Ray's Apu Triology will find it hard to digest the fact that the same Ray is the director of this film. ‘Kanchenjungha’, set in the hilly areas, revolves around the 20th century problems in a pristine location. Problems that we try to hide in daily life are revealed and exposed to everybody. It’s like people are revealing themselves as Kanchenjungha is exposed through bright sunlight.

It’s quite rare for regional film actors to turn down an offer from Bollywood. But Prosenjit has been a role model for the industry throughout his career. Very few people know that he once rejected offers from films like Bollywood superhits ‘Saajan’ and ‘Maine Pyar Kiya’. However, he made his debut in Hindi cinema with David Dhawan’s ‘Andhiyan’ in 1990. He did a cameo in Dibakar Banerjee’s political thriller ‘Shanghai’. He will also be seen in a Bollywood film ‘3 Dev’.

Before stepping into the film world, Jeet acted in a few television soaps. He made cinematic debut in a Telugu film named Chandu which failed to gain positive response at the box office. But Jeet tasted success through Haranath Chakraborty’s commercial hit ‘Sathi’ in 2002 and it also earned him two awards. In the same year, he appeared in the Bengali remake of ‘Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar’. This initial success was followed by other hits including ‘Sangee’, ‘Bandhan’, Yuddho’ and few others.

Satyajit Ray’s ‘Nayak’ was Uttam’s very first work with Ray. He did another film (Chiriakhana) with the Oscar-winning director which released in 1967. Interestingly, Ray had an offer for Uttam Kumar for his ‘Ghare Baire’ long before making ‘Nayak’. In 1956, Ray was sick and had to stay at home for few days. The filmmaker was planning a film on Ghare Baire. He developed the script of this Rabindranath Tagore novel, long before making ‘Pather Panchali’ in 1955. He wanted to cast Uttam as Sandip in his Ghare Baire screen adaptation. However, Uttam Kumar rejected the offer politely as it seemed a negative role for an already established star.