Raj Kumar Hirani's next film based on Sanjay Dutt is one of the biggest biopics of this year featuring Ranbir Kapoor in the lead and Paresh Rawal stepping into Sanjay's late actor-politician father Sunil Dutt's shoes. However not many know that Sanjay Dutt himself wanted to play character of his father Sunil Dutt.

Sanjay Dutt who was very close to his dad wanted to play the most iconic character of the film. Sanjay who gave 200 hours of recording as basic matter for the biopic, didn't want the attention to be divided between the real and the reel Dutt.

The film also features Sonam Kapoor as Sanjay's earlier love interest, Vicky Kaushal as his friend from the US, Anushka Sharma as a journalist and Paresh Rawal as Sunil Dutt. Manisha joins the cast as Nargis, Sanjay's mother, whose death in 1981 from pancreatic cancer, affected him deeply.