The story behind Jisshu playing Soumitra Chatterjee in his biopic

Parambrata Chattopadhyay’s one of the most ambitious projects, the upcoming biopic on Soumitra Chatterjee’s life made the cine lovers buzz about it ever since the film was announced. Titled ‘Abhijaan’ (produced by Navratan Jhawar in association with Roadshow Films), the film will have Soumitra playing himself at his present age and Jisshu Sengupta playing the role of a younger Soumitra. Sounds exciting right? Interestingly, Jisshu was supposed to play another role in the biopic but it was Soumitra Chatterjee who insisted Jisshu should play a younger version of him.
“I was supposed to play a different character in the film. One day Soumitra jethu called me and said, ‘You are doing this, right?’ Fifteen minutes later Param calls me up… he is like, ‘You have some time to talk?’ I was in Bombay. Param said, ‘Listen Soumitra jethu wants you to play him.’ I was like, ‘What?’ He told me the story then. And of course I was ready. Soumitra jethu has told me that he has full faith in me. ‘Do whatever you feel is right. I know you will succeed,’ he told me,” Jisshu revealed adding the script is about the man, Soumitra Chatterjee, not the superstar we know of. I am trying to capture his jibondorshon, his political views, what was important to him.
Apart from Jisshu Sengupta, Paoli Dam will be seen as Suchitra Sen, critically acclaimed filmmaker Qaushiq Mukherjee will essay Satyajit Ray. Sohini Sarkar will play Madhabi Mukhopadhyay. Rudranil Ghosh will take on the role of legendary Rabi Ghosh.
Shooting for the biopic was almost over when the coronavirus impact shut down everything last month.