Diana Penty Reveals The Real Reason Why Imtiaz Ali Dropped Her From Ranbir Kapoor’s Rockstar
Diana Penty’s latest work, Detective Sherdil, has been released on OTT recently. The actress made an impressive Bollywood debut with Cocktail and went on to do films such as Parmanu: The Story of Pokhran, Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi and Siddat among others. However, not many know that Diana was supposed to make her debut with Imtiaz Ali’s Rockstar opposite Ranbir Kapoor.
During a recent interview, she said that the filmmaker asked her to join acting workshops, but after a few weeks, she was dropped from the film. The actress told Hauterrfly, “I was in New York modelling when my agency called to say Imtiaz Ali was looking for a fresh face for his next film, Rockstar. Honestly, acting wasn’t even on my radar back then. I hadn’t taken any formal training. I didn’t think I had it in me.”
Diana continued, “He made me feel really comfortable, and during our first meeting, I could just be myself.” However, things did not work out for her. She shared that she got a call from the director after a few weeks in which he said, “You have come a long way and shown great improvement, but I still don’t think you are ready to play this character.”
This rejection did not disappoint Diana, as she was not confident enough to debut as an actress at that point. So she felt a sense of relief deep down. Following this incident, she resumed modelling and a year later, got a call from Dinesh Vijan for Cocktail. And interestingly, it was written by Imtiaz Ali.
Diana added, “A year later, I got a call saying Dinesh Vijan was looking for a new face for a film called Cocktail. And guess what? It was written by Imtiaz Ali. He remembered me and thought I’d be perfect for Meera’s character.”
While Nargis Fakhri was selected as the female lead in Rockstar, Diana went on to do Cocktail with Deepika Padukone and Saif Ali Khan.
Also Read: Farhan Akhtar introduces Diana Penty’s character from Lucknow Central
