Rishi Kapoor to play camouflaged Dawood

MUMBAI: Veteran actor Rishi Kapoor will now play Dawood Ibrahim in Nikhil Advani's "D-Day". Opposed to the director's initial plan, the character will not even be called Dawood anymore.

"D-Day" was supposed to be an authentic, gutsy, raw and edgy thriller about two RAW agents played by Arjun Rampal and Irfan being sent to Pakistan to bring Dawood Ibrahim back by road to be tried by the Indian government.

The idea was to name Dawood as Dawood and cast Pakistani actors to play characters from across the border.

But now Rishi will play a camouflaged Dawood, while the talented actor Chandan Roy Sanyal has been cast as the don's psychotic nephew.

"Rishiji's character is not even named Dawood any longer. Under pressure, Nikhil Advani had to give the character a fictional name, though it would be quite obvious who he is," said a source.

Rishi will be going all-out to play the camouflaged Dawood as authentically as possible.

"This would be an even darker more sinister character than the one he played in 'Agneepath' (of villainous Rauf Lala). Rishiji is researching the character as rigorously as he can. But now the excitement of playing the edgy real-life character is blunted," said another source from the unit.