| The replacement for Neena: Shonali Malhotra |
| The original Neena: Neeru Bajwa |
Neeru Bajwa, the actor who plays the vampish Neena in Raman Kumar's Miilee, has been thrown out due to her unprofessional behaviour and replaced by Shonali Malhotra Sonii. Neeru, incidentally, had some problems with Radhika Kumar who is the daughter of director Kumar.
"Yes we have replaced her. She was very unprofessional and I do not want any non co-operative person on my sets," confirmed the fuming director. "It was very difficult to even get in touch with her. She was completely inaccessible and did not report to the shoot. We are a daily and we need to have our bank. When 90 people can come on the sets why can't she come?" she added.
It was hard to replace Bajwa. "It took me some time to decide on her replacement as she is one of the most vital and important characters in the serial. But she had been giving us problems for over a month now. Finally, we had to make a call. I agree that the rains affected all of us but you can't just sit at home when everyone else is coming on the sets. I discussed the problem with Star and they suggested Shonali Malhotra's name. We screen tested her and found her perfect. She is on and I am glad that we have a professional person on our sets now."
Bajwa, on her part, was completely taken aback when we contacted her. She was completely surprised by the news and denied the entire episode, "I am not aware of this at all and I don't think it's true." She promised to call us back but never did. Further attempts to reach her fell on deaf ears.
On the other hand, Shonali Malhotra seemed pretty enthused about her inclusion in Miilee and said, "It's true that I am on the show Miilee and am pretty excited. I have been doing quite a few negative characters of late - be it in Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin, Saara Akash or Hum Do Hai Na. People come and tell me that I have sharp features and come across as a strong personality and that's why serial-makers cast me in negative roles."
Shonali will start shooting for Miilee from tomorrow and says about the show and her predecessor, "I have seen some episodes and I think it's quite good. Replacing someone else is not always easy as everyone has their own style. I believe Neeru was doing the show before and I will try my best and hope that people accept me as the new Neena."* It took me some time to decide on her replacement as she is one of the most vital and important characters in the serial – Kumar
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