Vidhu Vinod Chopra revealed the backstory of casting Sanjay Dutt as Munna Bhai, despite Dutt being shunned by the industry due to a terrorism case conviction. Chopra disagreed with the industry's decision and chose to support Dutt by announcing his casting. Initially, Dutt was slated for a different role, with Shah Rukh Khan set to play Munna Bhai.
During a discussion at the Kellogg Management School, the filmmaker confessed that he initially didn't envision Sanjay Dutt in the film. Consequently, upon Dutt's release from jail and eagerness to collaborate, the filmmaker conveyed that their collaboration would have to wait.“Sanjay Dutt went to jail. I didn’t know him at all. The whole industry banned him, but I thought this was very wrong, so I went to his house and announced a film with him. His father said that I’ll be banned as well, but I said, ‘I don’t care’,” Chopra said.
He continued, “Then, Sanjay Dutt comes out of jail. I remember him calling me from the car. He said he wanted to meet, and he wanted his first comeback film to be with me. I told him, ‘I’ll never make a film with you, I just announced it because it was the right thing to do’. He’s a very simple man. A good man, but a simple man. He thought the announcement meant that we were actually going to work together. I said, ‘I cannot make a film with you unless the equation changes, because I cannot exploit a good deed’. It’s a terrible thing to do, that you do something good and exploit it.”
