The story of late Bollywood actor Om Puri will be made into biopic, confirmed by his wife, Nandita Puri.
Nandita, who wrote the critically acclaimed actor’s biography titled Unlikely Hero: The Story of Om Puri, told that, “I am adapting the book. I am making a biopic on Omji. I am taking part of the book and I am putting it as he wanted, as an inspirational story.”
She is yet to cast an actor who can essay Om as it is difficult to do so.
She further said, “We are just at the developing stage of the screenplay. The script is the most important thing for a film. A few parts from the book and will mostly be throwing light on his struggle, the way Omji wanted.”
Her book which was released in 2009, left the couple’s relationship to go on rocky ground as she wrote about some intimate details of his life.
“As a journalist, I had gone to interview him. He said, ‘Why don’t you put my life story?‘ Nandita said.
“He came from a very humble background. He worked at a tea stall at the age of six to put food for the family on the table. His journey involved facing very difficult circumstances… From starving at FTII (Film and Television Institute of India)… If it hadn’t been for Girish Karnad who gave him a film and he got INR 3000 and managed to get through two years of FTII on that. It was very difficult.”
“Even veteran filmmaker Shyam Benegal had told me that when Omji was working in Mumbai, he was so poor and thin, he was down with jaundice and they used to think that he did not know whether the next meal was coming or not. From that, there are a hundred inspiring incidents from his childhood — how he overcame this, how he lived through it, how he surpassed it.”
