Thaindian News

Mumbai, March 17 (IANS) Director Anurag Kashyap has shot down casting couch allegations levelled against his friend, director Dibakar Banerjee, by actress Payal Rohatgi, saying a director of his generation won’t compromise on the integrity of his films.

Payal claims that Banerjee had asked her to show her bare body and when she refused to oblige him, she didn’t get the role though she did well in the audition for his much-anticipated project “Shanghai”.

“I stand by Dibakar. Among this generation of directors, not a single director will cast anyone just because he gets to have sex with that person. None of them would ever compromise with the integrity of their films,” Kashyap told IANS.

The director, who had himself launched two new faces - Mahie Gill and Kalki Koechlin - with his much acclaimed movie “Dev D”, said none of the directors meet the actors until the shooting date.

“I don’t think directors like Dibakar, Anurag (Basu) or Imtiyaz (Ali) would give a role to anyone who was sleeping with them. We all have casting directors. In the first place, most of the directors have stopped meeting actors.

“We audition for around three to four months for a character. Anyone who wants to bypass the audition gets automatically rejected,” said Kashyap, who is now in a realtionship with Kalki.

Talking about his films, he said he has three releases in the next five months.

“‘The Girl in Yellow Boots’, ‘Michael’ and ‘Shaitan’ are releasing in the next five to six months. ‘The Girl in Yellow Boots’ would be releasing in the next two months,” he said.

He has just finished shooting “Gangs of Wasseypur” and would start editing it after taking a long break.

“I have just finished shooting. It was a long marathon shooting of four months. I am taking a break now. Once I come back, I will edit the film. I had fun shooting the movie,” said the director.