Many of Sanjay Dutt’s fans agreed with him and wrote in his support on social media.
Vijay starrer Leo received mixed reviews upon release but the film still turned out to be a huge hit. The film also featured Sanjay Dutt in the villainous role but almost two years after its release, Sanjay has expressed his unhappiness with the role. He recently revealed in an interaction that he is angry with director Lokesh Kanagaraj as he did not give him a significant role in the film.
At an event of his upcoming film KD-The Devil starring Kannada actor Dhruva Sarja in Chennai, Sanjay revealed that he is very happy to work with Vijay but has one complaint against the director. He said, “I worked with Thalapathy Vijay. I loved it.” and added, “I am angry with Lokesh as he did not give me any major role.” He laughed and said, “They ruined me.” Though the actor may have meant it in a light-hearted manner, his statement received mixed reactions on social media.
A clip of his statement surfaced online, to which several X users reacted. Some agreed with the actor, writing, “Absolutely right. In my opinion, Leo didn’t need two villains, Harold Das’ character could have been easily missed in the writing. Sanjay Dutt had a strong presence and a great voice.” Another user wrote, “Not just him, every character ruined it. VJ should stop interfering in improving the story.”
Some others commented, “Absolutely right, they ruined him. Otherwise the film would have been a great film”, and “To be honest, absolutely true, no disrespect, Sanjay Dutt is older than Arjun and deserved to be the main villain.”
Meanwhile, some people got annoyed with his joke and wrote, “Did you sign the film without hearing the story and the role? You make good money and complain years later. Why promise if the role was less?” Another comment read, “Yaar, this is downright shameful.”
Earlier, talking about Sanjay Dutt joining the film, Lokesh Kanagaraj had told IndiaGlitz, “Based on his interviews and films, I had a different perception about him. I told myself, ‘Okay, he will be like this and you have to be so careful because he has done so many films.’ However, when I narrated the story to him and he felt there was scope for his acting, he was very happy.”
He further added, “He has done around 270 films, but this is the first film in Tamil. He has worked in KGF, and we have seen him act. All he could have said was, ‘I will speak the dialogues, you guys take care of the lip sync.’ But no. Every day, he would take dialogues and sit with my two assistants like a tuition student. He would memorise the dialogues, record and send it to me. Only after that would he sleep. Sometimes, he would prepare till 2 or 3 am in the morning before coming to the set. I never imagined such dedication.”
However, Sanjay Dutt’s character was dubbed by actor Pudipeddi Ravishankar. According to Saconilc, ‘Leo’, made on a budget of Rs 250 crore, grossed Rs 605 crore worldwide.
