When Imtiaz Ali decided to make a film on the life of Punjabi singer Amar Singh Chamkila, he auditioned a lot of actors before finalising the final cast. Actor Paramvir Singh Cheema, who is known for is work in web series like Black Warrant and Tabbar, recently shared with SCREEN that casting director Mukesh Chhabra even asked him to block his dates as he was one of the four actors finalised for playing the lead role. However, Cheema chose the SonyLIV show Chamak over Imtiaz’s Amar Singh Chamkila and he doesn’t regret his decision.
In an exclusive conversation with SCREEN, Paramvir shared the reason behind choosing Sony LIV show Chamak over Imtiaz Ali’s film, which received critical acclaim upon its release. He said, “I auditioned for the main character in Chamkila. I cleared the first three rounds. Just before the final round, Mukesh Chhabra called us four people and said, ‘One of you is going to be Amar Singh Chamkila, if not y’all then there is another actor in consideration. So one of you must be playing the lead role.’”
Paramvir said that Chhabra asked him to block his dates and shared, “They asked me block the dates because they were still in talks with Imtiaz sir. I am from Punjab so I had the background and my hairstyle back then sort of matched that of Amar Singh Chamkila. I had this cut with middle partition.”
It was around the same time when he received a call from director Rohit Jugraj, who offered him the lead role in Chamak without even meeting him in-person. “It was Sony LIV team who suggested my name to him after the success of Tabbar,” he shared. He added, “When I spoke to Rohit sir, he was so enthu… without taking any auditions, he said he will make Chamak with me in the lead. I chose Chamak over Chamkila. Eventually, I realised, that Diljit Dosanjh was playing Amar Singh Chamkila, I was like, ‘Thank God, I took the right decision by opting out of the film.’”
Imtiaz Ali finally shot the film with actor-singer Diljit Dosanjh. Parineeti Chopra played the role of his second wife Amarjot. The film, which had a direct-to-OTT release on Netflix, got rave reviews. Now, Paramvir Singh Cheema and Diljit Dosanjh will be seen in the film Border 2. However, according to the actor, they don’t have any scenes together.
