Arshad Warsi’s Circuit in Rajkumar Hirani’s ‘Munna Bhai MBBS’ outshone Sanjay Dutt, boosting his career from low pay. Post-hit, Vipul Shah urged Rs 1 Cr fees. He feared it was his last role but improvised freely.
Arshad Warsi became famous for playing Circuit in ‘Munna Bhai MBBS’, a movie by Rajkumar Hirani. His funny and smart acting as Circuit got more notice than Sanjay Dutt’s main role as Munna. Their great teamwork made the film special, and people still love watching it today. The movie changed Arshad’s career, the actor said he wasn’t earning much in films before that.
Arshad Warsi’s struggles before fame
In his Pinkvilla interview, Arshad revealed his pre-Munna Bhai struggles: “Before Munna Bhai, I hardly earned any money, very little, almost nothing. I wasn’t making anything; I would take whatever came my way and would be okay, never fighting too much about how much I would get.” He shared a key moment post-release when producer-filmmaker Vipul Shah called him out of the blue. “He called me randomly after Munna Bhai got released and said, ‘If you take even a penny less than Rs 1 crore, I will come after you.’” Vipul also urged him, “You have no idea how talented you are, why are you doing this?” It prompted Arshad to finally tell his manager to negotiate for Rs 1 crore. “After that, I started getting a little more money.”
Arshad Warsi fearing the end
The actor also opened up in the chat about fearing Circuit would end his acting days, viewing it as a minor goon spot behind Sanjay Dutt. “I wasn’t the first choice for the role. Many had rejected it, and I would have rejected it if I was doing better in life. There wasn’t much to it, he was just one of the 4–5 guys following the hero around, with maybe two more lines than them.” Yet, the role exploded thanks to on-the-spot creativity: “Raju (Rajkumar Hirani) gave me full creative freedom, and it was so much fun. I was enjoying myself, improvising. He also has a great sense of humour, and we were having a blast.”
Arshad Warsi’s unexpected turnaround
He was shocked at how much people loved the role and said, “Sometimes, things work out right when you don’t expect them to. I thought this would be my last film. I really believed that after this, I’d only get small goon roles behind the hero, and I didn’t want to do that anymore. So, I thought this is my last one. But somehow, it all just worked out and everything turned around.”
Arshad Warsi on ‘Munna Bhai 3’
Last year, talking to SCREEN, Arshad also revealed that work on ‘Munna Bhai 3’ is underway and said, “See, with part 3, the thing is that once it was not happening at all, but now Raju is actually working on it. He is seriously working on it, and it seems like it should happen now.” Go to Source
