Raima Sen was NOT the first choice for Vivek Agnihotri’s The Vaccine War? Deets here! EXCLUSIVE

Despite his last released film ‘The Kashmir Files’ was surrounded in many controversies and debates, the fact of the matter remains that, the film went onto do more than a whopping Rs. 100 crore at the box office. buoyed by the success of the film, all the eyes were trained on his next film ‘The Vaccine War’. As the title itself suggests, the film will be dealing with the war of the vaccines in the backdrop of the pandemic era. 

The film ‘The Vaccine War’ stars the inimitable Nana Patekar who will be seen in the role of Dr. Balram Bhargava (former Director General of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). The film also stars yet another powerhouse of talent in the form of Pallavi Joshi, who plays an all-important role in the film. Besides the inimitable duo, there is also Raima Sen, who had been missing from Bollywood since a couple of years as she was busy doing regional films. Did you know that, Raima Sen was not the original choice for ‘The Vaccine War’?

Well, in an exclusive interview with OTTplay, the film’s director Vivek Agnihotri revealed, “I had initially shot the film with a wonderful and brilliant actress from Telangana. After doing a few scenes, I realized that she was looking a little younger than what the role demanded. Since it’s a very important film, we could not afford to get our villain wrong. And that’s when, we decided to cast someone else. It so happened that, most of the actresses whom I had met refused to do this role. Around that time, I was in Kolkata for some event. And that's where she (Raima Sen) met me. I felt that she was the person I was looking for. And, when I asked her if she would be able to do a negative role, she said, “It depends”. But, when I narrated to the script to her, she immediately said yes in no time”.

And when we also asked the remuneration that Dr. Balram Bhargava had charged for giving the rights of his book ‘Going Viral: The Making of Covaxin’, Vivek replied, “When we went to meet him (Dr. Balram Bhargava), we asked him as to how should we pay him for the rights. He said that, “We had made the vaccine for the benefit of the public. Therefore, for the benefit of the public, this book was written. And, you can make a film without this (any money). But, when we insisted, he said that, as per the habit of Hindu civilization, if we do something, we need to take at least one rupee. And, Pallavi gave him one rupee. And that’s how we got the rights of the book to make it into a film.

Besides Nana Patekar, Pallavi Joshi and Raima Sen, the film also stars Anupam Kher , Girija Oak, Nivedita Bhattacharya, Sapthami Gowda and Mohan Kapur in extremely ‘powerful roles’. The film is all set to be released on September 28 this year.