Hyderabad: Director Anurag Basu launched Kangana Ranaut in his 2006 release Gangster. The filmmaker who played a mentor in Kangana's initial days in the industry denies knowing the person that she has become of late.
Besides Kangana's debut, Anurag has worked with the actor in films like Murder, Life... In a Metro and Kites. In his recent interview with a webloid, the filmmaker has opened up on the newcomer Kangana and her changed public persona in the recent past.
Anurag has said that Kangana needed guidance for everything in the beginning but she is really a fast learner and he witnessed her growth during the filming of Gangster itself. Talking about what made him sign Ranaut for the role of Simran in Gangster, Anurag said "There was something very raw and organic about her, very refreshing, very new."
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The filmmaker has however denied knowing the person that she has become in past few years and said, "We usually don’t meet, but whenever we do, this (public) persona is not the Kangana I (know) personally. So I think there are two Kanganas. Beech wali (the other one) I don’t understand."
Basu was to direct Kangana in a project tentatively titled Imali. But she had moved on from the project to focus on her directorial venture Manikarnika - The Queen of Jhansi. Back then she had said moving out of Basu's film was a tough call for her.
