Rakeysh Mehra can't afford Akki for Run Milkha Run

Run Milkha Run will have no A-lister playing the title role, not even Akshay Kumar who was the real-life Milkha's choice. Akshay was also Mr Bachchan's suggestion for Milkha's role.

But Mehra can't afford Akshay. It would have to be a newcomer.

Rakeysh starts shooting Run Milka Run from the middle of 2011. But first the nation-wide hunt for the right Milkha is on. Rakeysh and his team are in the process of visiting the remotest of towns in Punjab in search of the screen Milkha.

The idea of casting a superstar in the role has been totally abandoned, thanks to budget constraints. Remarkably. Rakeysh doesn't pretend that a star wouldn't work in a bio-pic.

“Oh, some of our stars are capable of transforming themselves into any character. I would watch an Amitabh Bachchan or a Dev Anand play almost anything. But in this case it was always a newcomer or a relative newcomer, ” says the director.

A nation-wide search has been launched for Milkha and Rakeysh already has a short list of newcomers and semi-newcomers. At the moment he will only reveal that his Milkha would have to be a good actor and a fantastic sprinter.

“It could be a semi-newcomer like Sharman Joshi in Rang De Basanti. What had he done before RDB? Some film called Style. If I had seen him in that I'd have never cast him. So I am going to cast someone with some acting experience. My budget doesn't allow me to get a complete newcomer and train him.”

Rakeysh says he is shooting Run Milkha Run at A “smart budget”

“We're cutting down production costs for the bio-pic by almost half by simply doing away with expenditure that was so far considered compulsory but is actually quite expendable. If you look at the big films that failed in 2010 they did not fail. Their budgets failed them. We won't make the mistake of optimizing the budget in Run Milka Run.”

Every actor in Run Milkha Run would have to audition for their parts. “That's the way it was it was in Rang De Basanti. Everyone except Aamir Khan had to audition.”

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