Dulquer Salmaan Revealed Why Kaantha Nearly To Shelved

Some movies are like stubborn seeds, they take forever to grow, no matter how much you water them. Kaantha was exactly that. It started off with excitement and slowly turned into an eight-year-long wait. For Dulquer Salmaan and Rana Daggubati, who were not just acting but also producing it, the whole thing felt like trying to fix a puzzle that kept changing shape. The problem wasn’t the story; it was finding time when both were free. A proper period film needs focus, but these guys were constantly on sets for other projects.

In a chat with The Hollywood Reporter India, Dulquer finally spoke out. He said they actually tried to shoot Kaantha and Lucky Basker together. Yep, same time. There were even days when both directors were in the same room, figuring out how Dulquer could look like two different people from two different timelines. That’s why he’s clean-shaven in Lucky Bhasker, it was supposed to work for Kaantha too. We were trying to be smart, he said, but it just turned into chaos.

Then came the frustration part. Lucky Bhasker got done, Kaantha still didn’t start, and Dulquer was losing patience. He thought the film might never happen. He even lined up another project to stay busy. Things got a bit heated between him and Rana, nothing dramatic, but a few tense, producer-style talks about lost dates and delays. For a minute there, it looked like Kaantha was about to be dropped completely.

But Dulquer couldn’t shake it off. He said he had a strange attachment to the story and the character, an old-time movie actor. It just felt too special to abandon. After a few arguments, long calls, and some let’s breathe and do this right moments, the film finally moved ahead. It took years, a lot of waiting, and a few bruised egos, but Kaantha survived. Guess some stories are meant to take the long road.