Emraan Hashmi plays character inspired by Mahesh Bhatt

Filmmaker Milan Luthria’s The Dirty Picture — a biopic on the life of late southern sex symbol Silk Smitha — has already been in news for Vidya Balan’s bold portrayal of the B-grade actress.

Among the male leads, while actors Tusshar Kapoor and Naseeruddin Shah both play characters fascinated by Vidya, actor Emraan Hashmi was touted to be playing the negative lead and his role was being kept under wraps.

And while Milan had earlier said that Emraan plays a character who hates her and yet gets ‘personal’ with her, sources reveal that Emraan is actually playing producer-director Mahesh Bhatt.

The source says, “This was supposed to be kept a secret but now it has leaked out that Emraan apparently plays Mahesh Bhatt, even though it is still unclear as to what relationship did he share with Silk Smitha. Emraan on his part did the research and read up on everything available on his uncle. He also hounded Bhatt to divulge information that was not known to people.”

Incidentally, Emraan happens to be Bhatt’s nephew and that may be the reason why the actor took the liberty to portray him on screen. Though this is sure to spark off a controversy of sorts, it will be interesting to see how well Emraan portrays his uncle on screen.