Taapsee Pannu was not the first choice for Haseen Dillruba’s Rani

The first trailer for Vinil Mathew’s Haseen Dillruba (2021) shows an ordinary wife, who loves the crime-thriller novels of Hindi author Dinesh Pandit, becoming the prime suspect in the murder of her husband. Taapsee Pannu stars as Rani Kashyap who stands accused in the eyes of the law and public opinion, unless she can prove otherwise.

While Pannu feels like a natural fit for the lead role, the actress revealed that she wasn’t meant to be cast as Rani originally.

“Haseen Dillruba was a film I had a very strong gut feeling about the day I heard the basic idea from [writer] Kanika [Dhillon],” she said. “Unfortunately, I wasn’t the first choice for the film and it came to me after all their options were exhausted. The good old saying that if it’s meant for you it will come to you stands true in this case.

“It’s not just a beautifully written mystery, it has such wonderful characters involved which is candy in an actor’s hands,” Pannu continued. “I am glad I got to experiment with my look and performance with this one because I am definitely not the go-to person for this kind of character conventionally and we all love to take risks here.”

Pannu's co-star Vikrant Massey, who plays her husband Rishu, said, “Haseen Dillruba is the perfect mix of humour, quirk, revenge and romance. I hope it surprises the audience as much as it surprised me when I heard it first.

"It was an enthralling experience shooting for it. Let us all watch the mystery unravel itself and learn important life lessons from our beloved Panditji.”

Harshvardhan Rane, who plays the mysterious stranger Neel Tripathi in the film, said he was honoured to work with Pannu and Massey. “Taapsee and Vikrant have one thing in common. I could never make out if they were joking or they were serious,” the actor said. “I always had to look for tiny nuances to understand the pretext. Working on Haseen Dillruba also gave me a chance to associate with the best filmmakers, be it Aanand L Rai sir, Vinil sir or Kanika ma'am. I was blown away by the script, a classic whodunnit that will keep you guessing until the very end."

Haseen Dillruba, which also stars Aditya Shrivastava as a police officer, is due to be released on 2 July on Netflix.