Deepika Padukone lands Happy New Year because Katrina Kaif couldn't do it

It is now clear that Shah Rukh Khan’s next production Happy New Year will feature Deepika Padukone. The news did not please those who were waiting to see the SRK-Katrina Kaif jodi re-unite after Jab Tak Hai Jaan. While Katrina Kaif was approached to do this film, she recently signed two new films — Kabir Khan’s for producer Sajid Nadiadwala with Saif Ali Khan and Abhishek Kapoor’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations — and so has no room this year for any other project.

Says a friend of Katrina, “She would have loved to do Farah’s film. Farah initially wanted to sign a completely new girl for Happy New Year, but when she couldn’t find the right girl to play her leading lady, she zeroed in on Kat. The actress and Farah are very fond of each other ever since they worked together in Tees Maar Khan. The film’s failure did not affect their mutual fondness. To be in Farah’s next and that too with Shah Rukh with whom Katrina really hit off during Jab Tak Hai Jaan, would have been fab. She wanted to do Happy New Year but as Kat is committed to finish Vijay Krishna Acharya’s Dhoom 3 and Siddharth Anand’s Bang Bang before working for Kapoor’s and Khan’s films, she could not do it.”

Interestingly, Farah’s heroine has to be a fast-talking Marathi girl and also a fabulous dancer since it’s the role of a bar dancer. “Katrina would have needed a long period of intense speech practice to sound like a Marathi. But where was the time?” asks a friend of the actress. So KK’s loss was Dips’ gain.